June/July Reading Recap

Summer usually goes by pretty quickly, and this one was no exception. I didn't read as much as I thought I would but enough to keep me sane.

Read in June

Radiant Shadows by Melissa Marr
The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan
Magic Study by Maria V. Snyder
A Spy in the House by Y.S. Lee
  
The Thirteenth Princess by Diane Zahler
Seven Up (audio) by Janet Evanovich
Alison Dare, the Heart of the Maiden by J. Torres
Alison Dare, Little Miss Adventures by J. Torres

Read in July

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Scones and Sensibility by Lindsay Eland

Fire Study by Maria V. Snyder

 

Voices of Dragons by Carrie Vaughn

Burned by P.C. Cast

After by Amy Efaw

One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia

Because I haven't blogged in awhile, I thought I'd also share some quick thoughts about my summer reading.

Eat, Pray, Love was by far my favorite book of the summer. It was one of those right books at the right time for the right me. Sometimes you just know what books you need to read at certain parts of your life, and this one was it for me. What else can I say about it? It's just too personal. But it does hit the big screen in a couple weeks, which is part of the reason I read it in the first place.

After is a book that I would not normally pick up on my own. But I had read reviews of it that made it sound enticing - it reminded me of an extreme version of The Secret Life of the American Teenager. Teen girl gives birth, not knowing that she was pregnant, and throws her baby out in the trash. Here's my Goodreads reaction:

I read out of my comfort zone with this one, so I'm not surprised that I didn't love it. But I did appreciate it. Devon is a 15 year-old girl with goals (pardon the pun) and ambitions - you know the type: motivated, straight A student, great athlete, babysitter, all-around good kid. But she makes a mistake-several-that change her life path. It's heartbreaking and mystifying. I found myself wanting to shake her and ask her what the hell she was thinking, but in the end, I felt for her. And I could understand how she ended up where she did. But it does leave me wondering, what happens after? How will she cope?

I just finished reading One Crazy Summer, and I have to say that I was left a little underwhelmed. Perhaps this is because I had read so many rave reviews of it, even some predictions of it winning the Newbery, but I just wasn't feeling it. Set in the Black Panther era, three sisters are sent to spend a month with their absentee mother in Oakland in an attempt to get to know the woman who left them. Though she wants nothing to do with the girls, Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern make the best of their summer across the country. Don't get me wrong - I liked the book, and I do think it was written rather well, but I didn't feel connected to it at all.

August Aspirations
Still on vacation, my first week in August will be spent relaxing, reading Fast Food Nation and perhaps a short fantasy or two. Once I start school mid-August, my goal is to read at least one children's novel from my own collection a week as well as a handful of picture books. And I'm going to keep pushing for more adult books because summer extends into August even though school is starting so early this year. I've fallen so behind in reading blogs that I'm hoping to do some catching up in that area this upcoming month too. We'll see how it goes!