Hey guys. It's Stephanie and i'm here
today to do my reading wrap up for the
month of July. I read quite a few books
in July. I'm actually really surprised at
how many books I've read, so i am not
sure if I am going to divide this wrap
up into two parts
so this might be part 1 of 2 or it might
just be a really long wrap up so we're
just going to wait and see how that
turns out
so the first book i read in the month of
july i read as a buddy read with Maddie
over at The Maddie Hatter, and I talked
about this being one of my favorite
books of the year so far
and this was Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
I just absolutely adored this novel
this is just a book that had a lot of
things that I personally enjoy it was a
family saga
the main character is intersex and it
is a almost like a fictional a family
history about how he came to be that way
since the
the specific condition that he has you
need two recessive genes for so he talks
about how to generations of his family
had kind of intermarried I absolutely
loved it from the first sentence which I
will share with you right now
I was born twice first as a baby girl on
a remarkably smogless Detroit day in
January of 1960 and then again
as a teenage boy in an emergency room
near Petoskey, Michigan in August of 1974
How do you not want to like find out
what happens and keep reading? So 5
stars to Middlesex I absolutely adored
this book
the next book that I read um I read kind
of with Monse over at the Rejected
Manuscript she is doing a forgot what
the hashtag is like Read Hispanic Lit
Read Spanish Lit? I think it's #ReadSpanishLit
so this is Sandra Cisneros the House on
Mango Street believe this is kind of a
young adult middle grade novel it is
really really short
these are more little vignettes than
just like a cohesive
story. The chapters are like two pages
like one and a half to remember when I
was in tenth grade the class got split
up into two groups and like one group
read this and the other group
I was in the other group and the other
group had to read John Knowles's A
Separate Peace
I absolutely hated that book I hated A Separate Peace, and I was so angry that I
didn't get placed into this group to
read The House on Mango Street
because I just felt like I would really
relate to and a whole lot better and
I think going into this I really thought
I would relate to it a whole lot more
than I did. One, because I am also, you
know, Mexican-American like the author
and because this takes place in Chicago
and I went to college in the Chicago
area and I did a lot of kind of
volunteer work with the inner city youth
in the area especially like the street
she talks about I know where she's
talking about like I have been there and
like been inside those houses and I felt
like I I knew what she was talking about
but overall I didn't really relate to it
all that well not to say that it isn't a
great piece of literature and great for
you know this middle grade level it is a
lot
it has a lot more depth which I really
enjoyed I still think i prefer Julia
Alvarez's How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent over this as a novel on
like the Hispanic immigrant
experience not to say I didn't enjoy
I enjoyed it i think i just prefer How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent for
something like within this genre. The next book
I read um I got as an ebook for my
library and that was Jeff Vandermeer's
Annihiliation
this is the first book in the Southern Reach Trilogy
this is sci-fi I really really enjoyed
this book i'm a little scared because a
lot of people said that they really
enjoyed the first book but then like as
they went on with the series it was a
little disappointing which kind of
breaks my heart because i really enjoyed
on Annihilation the first book and I was
really excited to hear that they are
making a movie adaptation with Natalie
Portman as the main character
the book is about an area called area x
and that be the southern reach like the
government has sent in various groups of
scientists to survey this area but
something terrible always happens they
sent an expedition and the group kind of
went crazy and all turned on each other
and died in this like hail of gunfire
then like they kept sending more
expeditions and like one expedition and
came back and they all just died of this
aggressive cancer and so this is the 12
expedition that they're sending and this
time they're sending all female
scientists
so there is a biologist and
anthropologist a psychologist and a
surveyor
they all have specific missions for what
they are supposed to do they are getting
very they are given very minimal
instructions they have like a black box
hanging from their belts and they're
just told when that black box flashes to
go find a safe place immediately they
don't tell them what the threats are to
any of this and they are even place in a
hypnotic trance while they got to the
specific area where they're supposed to
get
it is that treacherous and so the story
is about what happens while they're
there
very interesting definitely recommend
the next book I listen to as an
audiobook and this was Mindy Kaling's Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me and
Other Concerns. I absolutely adored this
book it was hilarious it just reminded
me of all the reasons whyI love Mindy
Kaling. I liked this book a lot more than
her second book
Why Not Me. It might be because this book
was written while she was still working
on The Office, and i absolutely love The Office is probably one of my favorite
shows of all time
so it was really cool to get like
stories about when she worked there i
thought this was a little more
inspirational
this book has really short chapters she
writes them a lot of them in lists and
maybe because I'm a millennial I enjoy
listicle structured things I just felt
like we really got to know her and who
she was as a child and you just really
got to see her charm and humor
come through in this work Why Not Me she
wrote after she launched her show the
Mindy Project, and was kind of talking
about the effects of the fame and how
she got her show and I just found this
work like a little more interesting
I though this book was a little funnier and
maybe a little more relatable
The next book I read was because I
decided to give Neil Gaiman another try
so I read the Ocean at the End of the Lane,  and I mean I liked it more than I
liked Neverwhere. I did not like Neverwhere I thought it was a little too
ridiculous
this was still kind of ridiculous but
this was supposed to be about the
relationship between like childhood and
adulthood
so I think for me to enjoy this I really
had to imagine this as a piece of
children's literature
I mean this is about like evil nannies
threatening to like lock you up in the
attic not something i usually read as an
adult but I think once I got in that
mindset and thought of it as children's
literature I enjoyed it a little more
just how everything is so
logical for you when you are a child and
just your imagination runs wild and I'm
not going to get any spoilers away but i
enjoyed this thing ends up giving this
like three and a half stars
so this restored my faith in Gaiman  a
little bit i just i don't know if his
writing is really my style or like his
kind of fantasy is really like the kind
of fantasy that i enjoy i do want to try
core line and the graveyard book and
then I think I'll make like my final
verdict decision on whether the game is
an author for me or not
the next book I read was also an e-book
from my library and it was Jonathan
Edison's This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance!
Jonathan Evison,  I think is better known
for his book the Revised Fundamentals of
caregiving which if you keep up with
Netflix was recently made into a netflix
movie i think it's either a movie or
show i think it was a movie with paul
rudd and Selena Gomez
but this is a novel about the
protagonist Harriet chance
her husband died and she finds out that
he won tickets to go on this Alaskan
cruise so she goes on this cruise by
herself and she received this piece of
news right before she gets on this
cruise that kind of makes her look back
on her life with a whole new lines of
story that I like where it is an elderly
character reflecting on their life
also in the story her adult daughter
comes on this cruise with her and she is
being haunted by her husband and she is
just a place in this situation where she
has to make peace with a lot of
different situations and confront her
past in a way I just I really liked it
was funny I thought it was very
heartwarming and cute it was like a very
quirky indie movie
I do enjoy that weird genre of like
elderly character looking back on their
life
so this definitely fell under that /
quirky indie movie and I really enjoyed
it so i might even check out the Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving. The next book I
read was my book clubs pick for the
month of july and
this was his Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God.  I absolutely
loved this book I gave it a 5 out of 5
stars
it follows the main character Janie
and she is telling her story to her
friends so it's kind of in a flashback
style and she's looking back she was in
a three major relationships in her life
and we kind of got get to see the
transformation she goes through as she
enters at these three different
relationships and how she falls in the
character in which each of those
relationships does to her for character
growth like life experience to say at
first this was very difficult to read
because the dialogue is written in on
kind of like an african-american and
southern dialect
so I think at first it was a little
difficult to get the hang of it because
half of it was phonetic and then the
other half was slang
so once you've got the hang of it was a
lot easier to get through and it was
interesting to see the dialogue and then
just the beautiful writing throughout it
I absolutely adored this book i love
Janie I think she's like now one of my
favorite characters in literature
I definitely want to read some more Zora
Neale Hurston for sure next book I write
I did as a buddy read with Kate over at
Kate how and we read Catherine banners
The House at the Edge of Night
this follows on this is a family saga
that takes place on an island off the
coast of Italy
the story starts out at the end of World
War I
when a character moves to the island to
take a position as the island doctor, and
then we see him start his family there
and it's the history of the Esposito
family on this island
I really enjoyed the story this was a
book to read for all the fields genre
wise i would say it's the same genre as
a Hundred Years of Solitude, but I would
say this is not add literary Catherine
Banner i think was a young adult author
and this is her adult debut the language
is very simple and very approachable
the story is very cute i love the
characters I love the story it was very
heartwarming I don't think the story in
any way
changed my life on but I enjoyed every
minute that i was reading it
my only complaint was that the last two
generations
I felt got kind of gipped on time
the first two generations take like over
a hundred pages to talk about everything
that they go through and all of their
character development and then the last
two generations have about 60 pages each
and it felt a little rushed and with
these stories I could read like an
800-page book
so this is the first time I think you'll
ever hear me complain that a book was
too short but I really just could have
read a whole lot more
it was really heartwarming and really
cute so I think if you're looking for
a cute heart warming read with a family
saga exotic location
I would definitely recommend this this
is something i would most definitely
consider a summer we'd so if you're
looking for something like that i would
definitely recommend Catherine Banners
the House at the Edge Night, and it is
all the books i have read for the month
of July
thank you so much for watching and I
hope to see you again soon bye
