August Reading Wrap Up
Still late. Still disorganised. Still unsure. But here are some books I read (sort of) recently SO LET'S JUST GO WITH IT.
Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare
By this point I’m not really sure why I keep going back for more Cassandra Clare books. I haven’t been the biggest fan of any of them so far, yet here we are and this is now the 10th book of hers that I’ve finished. I make weird life choices.
Besides all of that, I actually really enjoyed this. I liked this more than all the TMI and TID books, and am genuinely interested to see where the story goes. I would even say you can read this without having read any of the other books and all you’ll miss is some references that tie back to the rest of the story. Also you’ll be majorly spoiled for some things if you then did go back and read all of the others.
Julian is such an interesting character and he’s probably what made me like this book so much. I really preferred reading from his perspective than from Emma’s, but that’s fairly consistent with all of Cassandra Clare’s female characters. They all feel like pretty much the same person to me. There are some themes (dare I say, tropes) in this book that are also very reminiscent of the TMI And TID series, but even still I enjoyed this book overall. It could probably have done with being about 100 pages shorter though. I don’t understand why it’s so damn long. Seriously.
4 stars
The Invasion of the Tearling by Erika Johansen
So last month I read the first book in this trilogy and was already under the impression that this was not going to be at all what I was expecting. This book completely cemented that idea for me because at one point I actually checked that there wasn’t something wrong with my audiobook file and that I was still listening to the correct book (which I was). Once I got past how jarring that was, the story itself was good. But overall I didn’t like it as much as the first book. And if I even mention any names it’s probably going to be major spoilers for the first one but let me just say that this trilogy overall (because you’ll see further down I did read the final book this month as well) made me do all the arm waving and gesturing and basically ranting at my poor fiancé as I tried to be considerate by giving him the condensed version of a 1500 page story in about 90 seconds, while still expressing all the mind-fuckery that it brought on.
But back to this book on its own…
3ish stars. Maybe 3.5.
Because You Love to Hate Me by a bunch of authors (anthology)
I was so hyped for this. Probably too hyped. There are some of my favourite authors in this anthology collaborating with some of my favourite Booktubers AND all the short stories are about villains which I am also super on board with but overall I felt pretty meh towards the entire thing. I found a lot of the pieces the Booktubers wrote after the story itself to be kind of odd and just generally unnecessary, and some of the stories didn’t do much for me in the way of breaking down the complexities and intricacies of villains and why they do villain things. On the other hand, there were some stories I LOVED. So I’m going to give you a rating for each story because that seems fair and I can be fair and lovely:
The Blood of Imuriv by Renee Ahdieh
2 stars
Jack by Ameriie
3.5 stars
Gwen and Art and Lance by Soman Chainani
1 star
Shirley & Jim by Susan Dennard
4 stars
The Blessing of Little Wants by Sarah Enni
3 stars
The Sea Witch by Marissa Meyer
4 stars
Beautiful Venom by Cindy Pon
3 stars
Death Knell by Victoria Schwab
5 stars
Marigold by Samantha Shannon
5 stars
You, You, It’s All About You by Adam Silvera
5 stars
Julian Breaks Every Rule by Andrew Smith
4 stars
Indigo and Shade by April Genevieve Tucholke
3 stars
Sera by Nicole Yoon
4 stars
The good stories were so. damn. good. But the ones that weren’t really let me down. And I probably would’ve rated the whole thing 4 overall, if it weren’t for the Booktuber bits at the end of each story (which is so disappointing because that was what I was so excited for). I would 10/10 go back and re-read Victoria Schwab’s, Samantha Shannon’s and Adam Silvera’s, which makes sense because they’re three authors who I have already read and enjoyed.
3 stars overall.
Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire
What sorcery are these books?!?! They’re so small. Yet there is so much story and character development and generally just though provoking content that I can’t even deal. This follows twin girls Jack and Jill and everything that happened to them before the events of Every Heart a Doorway (the first book in this… series?). But this was amazing. The world that Jack and Jill go to is amazing. They are amazing. Their parents are idiots, but that’s kind of the point. I can’t wait for the next book to come out next year and the cover is, again, completely gorgeous.
5 stars.
The Fate of the Tearling by Erika Johansen
Well.
What a ride.
Seriously this trilogy turned out nothing like I anticipated, and I’m not mad about it. There’s nothing I can say about this without giving away major spoilers and being a horrible person so all I’ll say is YES. But also HOW. AND WHY. AND WHY. But mostly yes. Also I loved the way it all ended. I’ve read very differing opinions, but I loved it and would probably have been mad if it had wrapped up any differently. Even though I was still kind of mad about how it ended. But the good kind of mad that makes me want to take a nap because I’m emotionally exhausted after everything I just went through.
4 stars.
And that’s it! I only read 5 books this month because I had a couple of weeks where I didn’t read anything, but what I did read was (mostly) pretty great so success!
