Tuesday, August 1, 2017

August TBR and July Wrap-Up

July has been kind of a crazy month. We are still on summer break here in Oklahoma City, so I've had both the baby (who is CRAWLING!) and my pre-teen to contend with. Add overnight company and projects around the house and then throw in an extra baby for 2 weeks (I'm babysitting for a friend of a friend and remembering why running my own in-home daycare will never be for me) and I've been a little short on reading time.

Still, I've managed to knock out a few books on my stack, so I'm pretty pleased with myself. 

First up was an advance copy of I Never, by Laura Hopper. I requested (and received) a copy of this one from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. I Never is a good first effort, but falls flat. I was originally really excited to see another sex-positive YA book but ultimately, it just wasn't that great. Hopper has come up with a good story here, but somehow there's no magic in the text. It's all telling, no showing and there's almost a mechanical feel to it. Still, I think Hopper has promise and I'll most likely check out her next book, should she write another one.

Another book I finished this month was The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey. I was surprised by how much I liked this one. While I consider myself a fan of YA dystopian fiction, I do find some of it to be a bit tedious and far fetched, even for sci-fi/fantasy - too often the author comes up with a great premise but then gets bogged down by detail and lazy story-telling. Yancey doesn't seem to struggle with this at all and does a great job of dropping the reader right into the middle of the story without making one feel lost or confused. Not every author can pull that off. I have big plans to check out the rest of this series in the very near future.

The last book for July (that I finished, at least) was Love May Fail, by Matthew Quick. I've got a full review up of that one here.

Currently I am reading After You Left by Carol Mason and Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter. Next up will be Longbourn by Jo Baker (finally- this one's been on my TBR list since it came out back in 2013) and then...I'm not sure. August is going to be another busy month as we gear up for back to school, so it may well be quiet around here for a few more weeks.

No comments:

Post a Comment