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August 7: Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson (library ebook, 2023) - Book club pick for the month. Meh. 3/5 stars
August 8: Cleanup on Aisle Five: Essential Work, Poverty Wages, and the View from Behind the Supermarket Register by Ann Larson (book I own, 2026) - Should be required reading, especially for anyone who has avoided working retail jobs. 4/5 stars
August 13: The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden (library audiobook narrated by Michael Crouch, January LaVoy, author note read by the author, 2024) - Super interesting, although what I really wanted was a book about the Halifax explosion rather than WWI. 4/5 stars
August 15: Homebound by Portia Elan (library, 2026) - Strong start, but the ending left me wanting something more. 3/5 stars
August 16: Carl's Doomsday Scenario (Dungeon Crawler Carl #2) by Matt Dinniman (owned ebook, 2021) - Carl, Donut, and Mongo continue their marauding ways through the dungeon. It's fun. This floor had a circus theme if that entices anyone to read it. 4/5 stars
August 18: Strange Pictures by Uketsu (library, 2022, translated from the Japanese by Jim Rion) - Multi-part mystery you might be able to solve by looking carefully at the pictures! Very clever and fun. Here's a quote that might strike some of you as hysterical.
He felt...nostalgic, rather than nervous. Once, there had been so many blogs like this.
Ah, blogs. The concept now almost seemed quaint. (page 14)
We're all quaint! 4/5 stars
August 24: A Resistance of Witches by Morgan Ryan (library ebook, 2025) - What a delightful debut! 4/5 stars
August 30: Birding with Benefits by Sarah T. Dubb (library, 2024) - Fine. Just fine. 3/5 stars
August 31: Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman (library audiobook narrated by Steve West, 2012) - I don't know, friends. Genre mashup that I don't think I'm smart enough for. 2.5/5 stars
Total:10 books
Average star rating: 3.55/5 stars
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Did you read a 5/5 in August? What was it? I need something REALLY GOOD. (For all you recommending Whistler, I have to admit I'm 10% in to the audiobook and considering DNFing it. Does it get better? It has to get better, right?)
Yeah, August was a slow reading month.and so was July. My average rating is "it was fine".
ReplyDeleteI adored Whistler, and it swept me off my feet right away. If you're having "meh" vibes at 10% my advice is to dump it for something that will make your toes curl.
As far as something REALLY GOOD, I'm at 80% in Good People. For me it was a slow ramp up where at first all I had to go on was that I liked the tone of the book and then the story slowly built up and now I'm hooked. Nicole and Elisabeth both gave it raves.
I loved Good People (as Birchie notes). My 5-star reads this month were Gone With the Wind (which I know you've already read), Heft by Liz Moore, and The Irish Goodbye: Micro-Memoirs (non-fiction).
ReplyDeleteI'm really glad I read Cleanup on Aisle Five, but I'm even more excited to read Nickel and Dimed after your recommendation.
Engie! Wait for it...I had TEN five star reads in August! Okay, six of those were rereads. And I already knew I loved them and they would be five star reads. But four were new and I think that is HUGE, Kin, Good People, Silver Sparrow, and The Sweet Spot.
ReplyDeleteI loved Whistler but I am an Ann Patchett fan, and I know you aren't. So go ahead and DNF! Life is too short if you're not enjoying it (I know you don't need my permission, I'm just trying to be a supportive friend).
Right now I'm reading Inheritance, about a woman who discovers that her long-deceased father is not her biological father. It's kind of a wild story but something is sitting really strangely with me while I read this. I have to think how to articulate it. Something I don't have to think about to articulate is that those ancestry websites, man, you could not pay me to do that.
Ooh, I'm glad you liked Strange Pictures. It's a strange book, right? And- I'm not even going to start Whistler. I know myself well enough to know it's not for me, even though so many people love it. I didn't like The Dutch House either.
ReplyDeleteI do want to read Good People though- everyone seems to be loving it and it sounds like something I would like.
I totally get it about Whistler. You kind of have to be in the mood for almost critical reading with that one although it seems deceptively simple.
ReplyDeleteThis summer, I'm rereading. I just finished The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, and it's absolutely wonderful. Lots of dog talk and dog plots that figure into this modern take on Hamlet. It's not a particularly chipper book, but it's beautiful and compelling.
Bless all the workers in the retail sector (and the fast food sector). I could never, ever do their jobs. Even my brief stint in a big store's pet department was ... well, I begged to be put in the warehouse where all I had to do was open boxes and count stuff.
ENGIE! I just finished a book told from a dog's perspective and I loved it - Etna by Paul Yoon. I thought, "I wonder if Engie would like this? It is about a dog. But it's also about war. Hmmmm,,," So I am going to drop it here and you can decide if you want to read it. The audiobook was lovely, but I think I would have also liked to read it in print.
ReplyDeleteAside from Etna, my favorite book last month was Dolly All the Time - swoony and lovely and also people still get up and go to work every day and figure their shit out. I have other books on my pile, but I've re-read Dolly three times this month because I loved it so much. (I did also finish Nora goes off script, which I loved, though I think the characters are better defined in Dolly.)
This is Diane, by the way!
DeleteI had 3 5-star books in August: Daughters of the Bamboo Grove (non-fiction about international adoptions during China's one child policy era - the children were often essentially stolen from their parents), The River is Waiting by Wally Lamb (very sad, hard read but so very well done IMO), and Lovelight Farms by BK Borison (fake dating trope, set on a Christmas Tree farm - delightful).
ReplyDeleteNo 5/5 books for me sadly. Not even a 4/5. I need to up my literary game!
ReplyDeleteI don't remember any 5 star reads- I read some perfectly good mysteries, a few non-fiction, and two new releases. One- Adversary to the Villian I loved until half-way and then disappointed in the end. It felt like she wrote herself into a corner. Daggerbound by T Kingfisher- fine but not fabulous. But maybe it's just me- not my usual genre! I did enjoy Sarah Beth Durst's series The Spellshop. A Trade of Blood was very good- I get drawn in even though i didn't think I like it and it has some very dark moments.
ReplyDelete