My July Reading Wrap-Up
I was really a bit apprehensive starting July, as I had such a good reading month in June I was worried I wouldn’t have as good a month this month! But while I read less than last month, I’ve read some of my favourite books of the year in July!
You Should See Me In A Crown by Leah Johnson
This was the most gloriously joyful way to start the month! To me, this felt very much like Simon Vs, except black and lesbian, which I LOVED. F/F romance should get the same amount of airtime, and why Hollywood aren’t already making the Love, Simon equivalent film for this book is BEYOND ME. It’s a gorgeous story of Lighty, who enters the prom queen contest so she can afford to go to college. Lighty finds herself in a world she’d rather avoid, pushing through her shyness to achieve what she wants… with a gorgeous romance on the side. I also loved the fact that this story featured a platonic m/f friendship that at NO POINT was there any implied romance. More of this please!
Loveless by Alice Oseman
Alice’s fourth book is an aro/ace coming-out story starring Georgia and her friends Pip and Jason as they all go to university. This was absolutely fantastic and for me, I found the rep to be so good. I had loads of feelings so I did a separate review of it here.
The Life and (Medieval) Times of Kit Sweetly by Jamie Pacton
This story is set in modern-day America, at a medieval re-enactment society. Kit wants to be a knight like her brother, and joust in the tournaments. But that’s not allowed. So she disguises herself as her brother and beats the opposing knight, announcing herself to the crowds. But her workplace are fuming, and so starts her campaign to become a fully-fledged knight…
I went in to a bit more detail with my review here.
Pride by Ibi Zoboi
This is a Pride and Prejudice retelling, set in New York. Now, I’m sceptical of basically all P&P retellings, regardless of the writer or the setting or the time period. But I really enjoyed this! I felt like it really honoured the sentiment behind the book, with Zuri’s passion for her neighbourhood and opposing its gentrification paralleling how proud Elizabeth Bennet is of her family especially when faced with Darcy’s imperious entitlement. The nods to the original were well done and yet it felt like a very different story. I also really liked Layla’s involvement in the story - as the Lydia Bennet character - which again updated the original beautifully. Well worth a read if Austen retellings are your cup of tea!
The next few books I read as part of the Reading Rush (before the issues came to light) and I vlogged my reading for that week, which you can see here.
Alex & Eliza by Melissa de la Cruz
This was such a cute book! it was a very cosy and comfy period drama. No surprises, all the tropes, and a happy ending. It was all I wanted! I’m not sure how I feel about reading a sequel now, as the happy ending has already happened - have you read the sequels? What did you think?
The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
This was phenomenal. If this isn’t on my books of the year in December, I do not know what will have happened. Set on the remote island of Vardo, Norway, in the 1600s, this is the story of a community of women who have to learn to fend for themselves after a storm kills all their menfolk. But over time, this brings suspicion upon them as witches, leading to the arrival of Cornet who is there to clear out any sign of witchcraft.
The characterisation was the best thing about this book for me. The main female characters of Maren and Ursa were so well brought out that they really drove the narrative, in as much as while the plot was eerie and slowly tightening and tightening, Maren and Ursa were there standing up against the forces that could have driven them in to silence. The quality of the writing itself was excellent, and just so immersive that I couldn’t let this book go. The hangover was real after this one.
Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi
I went in to this quite excited, as I loved the first in this series, Children of Blood and Bone. But… reader, I DNF’d. I was seventy pages in and while I could see all the components of the story whirring, this felt like a book that was jumping through the expectation hoops rather than driving itself. I may well come back to it - especially as I loved the first book! - but right now, it felt too formulaic for me to really enjoy.
Fence Vol 1
I really did struggle to pick a book to follow up after The Mercies and thankfully I had been gifted Fence Vol 1 for my birthday! I was so glad to have this to turn to as a change of style and format of story works so well for me when I’m in reading hangover or even a reading slump. This is set in a private school, focused on the fencing team, and is so blatantly serving me enemies-to-lovers joyousness that as soon as I finished Vol 1 I immediately starting looking up the rest of the volumes so I can read and inhale them too. SO good!
Slay by Brittney Morris
Slay has been on my TBR for far too long, and after Kate told me how much she’d enjoyed it, I bumped it up the list! This is the story of Keira, a high-school student and inventor of mega-hit video-game SLAY. But then a player is killed, and all eyes are on the game and the world Keira has created. I loved this for the girls in STEM rep, the discussions around race and being ‘enough’, but mainly for Keira’s wonderful character. This was tense the whole way through, and I loved it!
The Archived by VE Schwab
I read The Archived as part of Kate’s Schwab Readalong. I was… behind. I left this very last minute to read. But I was so glad I read it in one hit, as it’s quite slow to start and I think there’s a chance I would have put it down had I not been determined to keep going. That said, I really loved it once things kicked off, and from that point onwards I was absolutely invested! It’s strange going back and reading an earlier work of an author you love: a lot of moments in The Archived felt like echoes of future books that I’ve already read, like the City of Ghosts series or the Shades of Magic series. It threw me at first but again, when the pace picked up my minding about those echoes died off somewhat. Certainly not V’s best work but then again it was one of her first, so it’s not surprising! I still really liked it though and will attempt to read The Unbound (the sequel) soon!
