OK, well the summer is gone and the kids are settled into school! Did everyone survive? I always start August thinking I'm prepared for the mayhem that will ensue towards the end of the month, but I always, without fail, underestimate the craziness. And this August was no exception. It was hectic. It was stressful. It was not organized. It was not aesthetically pleasing. But we all made it through. Now to just get through the rest of the school year 😳 I did manage to read four books this month! Let's not talk about the amount of stress reading I did for absolutely no reason, but did anyway! How did you round off your summer reads? Did you read anything fantastic you want to tell me about? Leave me a comment! OK, without any more idle chitchat, let's get started!
"Bloodsucker's Blog:Life Sucks" by Ella Stone
Merrywen has been seventeen for seven years and isolated in a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. It's for her own good and the good of everyone else, and she knows that. She's a vampire, after all, and it's kind of hard to explain that to everyday people without it being a little awkward. Plus, after what happened with that guy in town? Merrywen is happy to stick to the shadows forever. But when she is forced out of her seclusion due to blood supply issues, she decides to start a blog to help vent her fears and frustrations. When it gains some popularity, Merrywen finally feels like living life again (metaphorically speaking). But when people start turning up mysteriously dead and her followers are quick to blame her, she has no choice but to solve the murders herself and clear her name.
Let me start by saying, I don't actually love vampire books. Now that you know that, when I tell you this was one of the best one's I've read in a long time, it's really saying something! This book was funny, fast-paced, and had this nice little murder mystery and budding romance on the side. I really enjoyed it. And all those weird little vampire questions you have that nobody wants to answer in other vampire books? Stone covered them all! And left room for a sequel! The ending was just the right amount of cliff-hanger. Consider me subscribed to Merrywen's blog.
"Where the Dead Sit Talking" by Brandon Hobson
At fifteen and his mother in jail, Sequoyah, a Cherokee boy, is placed in foster care. He's not alone. There are two others in the house with him. For years, Sequoyah has retreated into himself in order to stay safe and alert. For the first time in a long time, he's able to explore who he really is and finds a strong bond with the other indigenous girl in the house, Rosemary. But can they both find happiness and safety in their situation? Or are some scars too deep to heal?
When I came across this book, I wasn't sure what to expect. And I'm still trying to understand how I feel about it. I know that I enjoyed the book, but there were aspects of it that left me feeling on edge and incomplete. We are literally thrown into a snapshot of Sequoyah's life. We're not given much background and given no closure at the end. The book stops as abruptly as it begins. This is a small moment in time that we're looking at. And on one end of the spectrum it makes for brilliant writing, and on the other, I still wonder how Sequoyah turned out after all of this.
"The Midnight Library" by Matt Haig
At the edge of life and death, there is a library with infinite shelves and infinite books. Books of every life and every outcome that could have ever happened to you. A life where you chose this career instead of that, married this person instead of that one, had children or not, one where you didn't make that mistake. A life for every regret you've ever had no matter how big or small. Lives where you chose a salad instead of a hamburger and altered the entire course of your existence. Nora finds herself in this library, full of all the opportunities she feels like she wasted in her root life. Nora always had so much potential. That's what everyone said, and Nora always felt like she let every single important person in her life down. But now, she has the opportunity to change everything. To choose a new life. A life where she didn't fail by not making a choice. Maybe a life where she could find happiness. But will she choose in time? Time in the midnight library doesn't stay frozen forever. Tick tock, Nora.
I am absolutely gushing over this book! I had no idea what I was in for and it blew me away! It's like Haig reached into my soul and wrote something just for me, because this is exactly how I see all of it. I felt so validated and so seen by this book, I just loved it to death and the library! Now, there are some people that think Nora was privileged and this book is a bit classist and I have to say, yeah, I understand where they're coming from. But let us also remember, there are no requirements for depression. Just because someone has more options than others (based on income or talent, etc.) doesn't mean that their mental health struggles are invalid. Nora's struggles are still valid. And I have to say, lots of neurodivergent people feel like Nora in this situation. They grow up being told they're bright, have loads of potential, and can achieve anything, only to find that just the act of choosing the thing to do is the hardest part. Or making one wrong decision after another to the point where they feel like they'll never live up to their potential. That they'll never achieve anything at all. And that all that potential, talent, brain power, is completely wasted. I just found this book remarkable. I absolutely loved it.
"Adrift" by Tami Oldham Ashcraft
Tami and her fiance, Richard, set sail from Tahiti to San Diego in a beautiful boat they've been hired to deliver. What could be better? Tami and Richard have the type of love everyone dreams about and the thing they love just slightly less than each other? The open sea. And the delivery fee for this boat will ensure many months of uninhibited sailing ahead. But just two weeks into their voyage, they find themselves caught in a devastating hurricane. Richard tells Tami to go below for safety, relying on his safety tether to keep him aboard. Hours later, Tami wakes up to a ravaged boat, still waters, and an empty tether line where Richard should have been. This book is Tami's survival story and what it took to get a mast-less, motor-less boat to safety in the middle of the high seas.
This book just broke my heart. If you like survivalist stories, this is definitely a good one. There were times when it got a little boring, because she was stuck on a boat in the middle of the ocean. There's not always a ton going on, but the way it was put together was terrific. We get lots of glimpses into Tami and Richard's life together and also how Tami got into circumnavigating the world in the first place. I loved hearing about their life together and their adventures as much as her survival story. The end had me conflicted, but I had to remind myself that this was someone's actual life, not fiction. So. I could never understand the position Tami found herself in and it's not my place to judge any of her decisions. This was turned into a film in 2018. If you want to hear me compare the book to the film, I'll be doing that later this month over on my YouTube channel (alyxnwonderland), so you can watch for that.
That's what I read for August! It was such a great lineup, and I enjoyed them all! I'm getting my September reads settled and am already looking ahead to October! If you didn't know, I only read horror books in October. So, if you have any horror books you absolutely love that you'd like to recommend, drop me a comment! I'm always up for recommendations. Until next time, book nerds. Happy reading!
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