This is a look back on the books I read in July. I
read A LOT of books this month. I finished some books I’d been working on for a
while, and I also got very petty and weird and thought, fuck it, let’s read
some books I never planned on reading, because reasons. I had fun though.
I wrote a review on this book on the blog, but in
short: I LOVE IT! Rainbow Rowell is an amazing author. She made me cry, which
I’ll easily admit is not hard to do, I cry at pretty much anything, and she
made me laugh, out loud. That doesn’t normally happen to me. It’s so gorgeous
and beautiful and I love it so much. I’m going to stop gushing now. Anyway,
it’s about a girl named Cath who is going to college with her twin sister Wren.
For the first time Wren doesn’t want to share a room with Cath, and Cath has to
manage on her own. Cath struggles with anxiety it seems, it’s never said outright,
but she won’t go to eat dinner because she’s afraid to ask someone where the
dining room is. She likes to spend her days writing fanfiction about Simon Snow
(which is supposed to be Harry Potter, sort of, a slightly camp-y version).
It’s really funny, and good and exciting, and read it. Now.
It’s quirky and funny and sweet and cool. The book is
about a 17-year-old named Vivian Apple who lives in Pittsburgh with her parents
Ned and Mara. Her best friend is Harp and she’s just a normal sort of kid.
Recently there has been a sort of surge in religious fervor in America. A man
named Beaton Frick has created a new church, the Church of America, and he has
created a world where they’ve gone back to a sort of men-are-awesome-women-are-whores.
He tells his followers they’ll be reaped and go to heaven on a certain day, and
that day when Vivian comes home from a party she finds holes in the ceiling and
her parents gone, presumably Reaped. Like a meek, obedient child she goes with
her grandparents to New York. She spends a while there and gets more and more
disillusioned with her grandparents apathy and she runs away. She goes with
Harp and a boy named Peter to find out what has happened. They go on a drive to
California. It’s exciting, it’s a little scary to see how easily America slips
back into further ignorance and cruelty in this book, how easily the capitalist
church sneaks into their minds again. I really liked it and I’m really excited
to read more about Vivian Apple.
This book is a book I bought just because the cover
was great, and it’s about teenagers flying bomb planes. It’s about Rain Aranoza
who lives in Rodina and along with her cousin she joins an elite team of pilots
who are only teenagers. The people of Rodina lose their night vision when they
become adults so when the God fearing Crux attack Rain and her friends fly out
in old planes to bomb the Crux at night. It’s really interesting, Rain and the
other people of Rodina are ruled by Aura, who tells them of science and truth.
Everything about God, witches or superstition is illegal, and Rodina is
basically a more severe and advanced Soviet. They can’t question or oppose Aura
in any way, and are the people of Rodina more suppressed, or the god-fearing
Crux? They are all ruled by something, but is science or God the right way?
This was very incoherent, but I really loved it. I thought it was amazing.
I finally bloody finished it. It’s basically exactly
what the title says. It’s a history of the world, and science and it’s very
interesting. It’s basically about the development of science and it is about
things that I learned in school, but also more concise and more inquisitive. I
really like it and I think I’ll have to look into his travel books.
This is a book I’ve had on my shelves forever, for
some reason. I don’t remember exactly why I bought it, probably just because I
tend to buy books just cause. It’s about a 9-year-old kid called Finn who lived
in Oslo in the early 1960s. He lives in this sort of precarious balance with
his mother, and then his half-sister, by his father, comes to stay with them
because her mother is a junkie of some sort. It’s basically just the story of
what happens to them in the year that his half-sister lives there. It’s about
how Oslo is, how life is for a single mother in the early 60s. It’s not the
kind of book I normally read, and I was worried I wouldn’t like it, but I
really did, it was interesting and it was heart-breaking and beautiful.
I’m not done yet, but I will finish. I love it so
much. It’s sooo good!
I really liked it. I thought it was bloody amazing. I
thought the art was amazing and the story was really good. Marko and Alana are
on opposing sides in the war, but they fall in love and run away. They get
married and make a baby together. They are now being hunted by both the sides
of the war and by some free agents. There are ghosts and monsters and people
with screens as heads. I thought it was great, I’m excited to read the second
volume.
Eehr ma gherd it’s ehrzerm. I’m done gushing. No I’m
not. I started reading Scott Lynch this year, because I saw the cover of this
one in a store, and the author’s name looked really familiar, and I realized I
had the first book at home, so I read that, then the second, and now this one.
There might be spoilers for the first two, not like major things, but some
stuff. So, you’re warned. The books are about Locke Lamora and Jean Tannen, who
are con artists and thieves. In the first book they piss of the Bondsmagi, who
are some sort of sorcerers, and in the second book they get poisoned. Jean is
cured when Locke tricks him into taking the only cure they have. They only have
enough antidote for one. In the beginning of this book Jean is trying to get
doctors to cure Locke, but no one can. Then the bondsmagi turn up and say
they’ll cure Locke if Locke and Jean help them win an election. So Locke is
cured and they start working on the people of Karthain to fix an election,
basically by cheating. And the person who has the same job for the opposition
is Sabetha, the love of Locke’s life, who they grew up with. It’s really good.
I might need to do a whole review, but I really liked it. I like so much about
Scott Lynch. The way he writes women is really interesting and good. And I like
the writing, he’s an excellent teller of stories. I love how the books are
built up. You get like the plot and then the backstory of the Bastards growing
up, which is pertinent to the rest of the story, which is cool. And I love
Sabetha, so there. It was so good.
This is the first book in the Dark Tower series. It
has been in my shelves for about an eternity, and I finally read it, go me!
Stephen King has been working on it for like, decades. I liked the first book.
It didn’t blow me away, but I thought it was interesting. It’s about Roland, a
Gunslinger, who is travelling across the country, chasing a man in black. He
moves through towns, deserts, over mountains and into forests. Throughout the
novel we also get to know Roland’s backstory, he’s in a sort of creepy
brotherhood of men who shoot people. I have no idea. He’s a fascinating person
and the story is fascinating, and I will want to read the rest of the series,
eventually.
I was going to finish The Wise Man’s Fear, but I felt
like Emma was hanging over me, because I’ve been reading it for so long, so I
sort of forced myself to finish. I really wanted to finish it too, but it felt
like I had to make myself. Also, I’m watching Emma Approved, and you know, that’s
the best thing in the world. I realized when I finished reading it that it’s
basically about NOTHING. There’s no real plot, it’s just this sort of look into
a life for a while, it’s fascinating, there’s just long, very mundane
conversations. It’s fascinating though. It’s about a young, wealthy woman,
named Emma Woodhouse, who lives with her father, and likes to think she knows
everyone’s business and that she’s responsible for her former nanny marrying
their neighbor. Her only critic is the old family friend and her sister’s
brother-in-law George Knightley, who tries to keep her humble. She befriends a
young woman, Harriet Smith, who is a much lower class, but sweet and fun. Emma
tries to set Harriet up with the new preacher in their village, but it doesn’t
really work out, so her world sort of shifts. She grows amazingly throughout
the novel. She becomes a much better person, a much more thoughtful person, and
she doesn’t rush to judge or come up with ploys. I really liked it.
How I am doing so far
I’ve currently read 51 books, so I’m pretty far ahead
on my 70-books-challenge. Which is good. I have finally finished a classic, so
whoo. I finished another Norwegian book, but I’m not exactly on schedule, it’ll
be fine. My Mount TBR challenge, is sort of okay. I’ve read 19 of 36, I should
be on 21. I’ll be fine. I have all the faith.
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
Night Witches by LJ Adlington
Vidunderbarn by Roy Jacobsen
The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
Saga, Volume #1 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
The Gunslinger by Stephen King