Me in the month of June: I want to read more
books in July! Me in July: reads one less
book.
Hi guys, It's Olivia here from Olivia's Catastrophe
here to give you my late July wrap up. In
the month of July I only read review copies
and books I need to review on my blog, so
I read six books. I didn't do much reading.
I wasn't really feeling it. But let me tell
you about the books I did read.
One of the first books I read was Heart of
Iron by Ashley Poston and this was was the
second time I was giving this book a chance.
It's a retelling of Anastasia, and it's about
Ana who works on this ship. And she is a criminal.
She has a best friend who is a robot who she
happens to be in love with, who is kind of
breaking down. And she needs to find this
very special chip in order to save him. But
things get complicated when it comes to royals
and a lot of stuff happens. And it ends up
turning into a bigger conspiracy than she
thought was possible. That was not a very
good explanation for this book but the reason
why I had to give this book a second chance
was because the first time I read 25 percent
and was not convinced. I didn't like Ana as
a character and I didn't like her love with
the robot. It was a bit weird and it just
wasn't working for me on so many levels even
though I usually enjoy sci-fi and retellings.
However, reading it this time I did enjoy
it more and I have to say the secondary characters
are what really brought it through for me.
Jax and Robb were the reason I kept reading
this one basically. Jax was such an interesting
character because he's a Solani and they're
very special. They have all these qualities
to them - very complicated - and basically
if the book was centered around Jax and Robb,
instead of Ana and D09, I would have been
much much happier. However, I did enjoy reading
it and managed to rate this one 3 stars in
the end.
I read two physical books. I was traveling
a lot so I went from like, Spain, to Italy,
to London so I didn't have many physical books
with me but I did finish these two. And one
of them is Ecstasy by Mary Sharratt.
It's a historical fiction about Alma Mahler.
Alma fell in love with Gustav Mahler and they
got married and had a whole life together
in real life, but before that Alma had many
love affairs and she was a very creative woman
herself. So it was interesting to learn a
lot about her as a person and a historical
figure through reading this one. I didn't
know anything about Alma Mahler or Gustav
Mahler before reading this one, but I did
know about some of the people she had love
affairs with. And I just really enjoyed this
historical fiction. I gave it four stars.
It really talked about womanhood, motherhood,
art, creativity, music and it was just so
interesting to read this book. And especially
because when she married Gustav Mahler he
wanted her to give up her composing to be
with him. Which is just a very interesting
point, and a very interesting feminist discussion
can be brought up around this book. It kind
of reminded me of Circe but then historical
fiction wise instead of mythology. So if you
enjoyed that one, then you might also enjoy
this one. I actually bought like six other
books because she keeps mentioning all these
writers, in this book, and I just have to
read their books to see what I think of them
myself.
Then the next physical book and the last physical
book I read was Hellworld by Tom Leveen. This
one is kind of a horror, apocalyptic book.
And it's about this group of kids who go into
this cave because they're looking for their
parents who previously disappeared into this
cave a couple years ago. And what they find
there are some zombies and also some monsters.
However, they accidently free those monsters
and they end up going into the world and creating
this Hellworld. Hence the title. I did enjoy
reading this one. I think it had some really
interesting themes in there. About religion,
kind of crossing into science fiction, and
just... meshing back and fourth between the
two and making them one. Which is really interesting
because lots of people think science and religion
are total opposites. But they really tried
to take a logical approach to how the world
is in this situation, which I did like. It
was told in the perspective - switching between
chapers of before they went into the cave
and after they went into the cave, and I think
that worked very well for this story. The
characters were alright. The romance felt
entirely unnecessary and I did not like the
open ending. I'm a fan of closed endings and
I was a bit unsatisfied with this ending as
well as knowing there's no sequel which kind
of made this a little bit of a disappointment.
I did enjoy reading it, but I had some mixed
feelings. Some things could've been better.
Then I read 26 Kisses by Anna Michels. This
is about a girl who has had a break up from
this relationship she has been in for a long
time. She's a teenager. This is a young adult
contemporary. And after she has the break
up her best friend comes up with the idea
that she kisses 26 boys in the summer. Starting
from a boy whose name starts with the letter
'a' and ending with a boy whose name starts
with the letter 'z'. She's supposed to kiss
all the way through. And I just should have
known that I was not going to like this book
before I picked it up! Because what am I??
It's just not my type of read. I don't really
enjoy contemporary that much anymore. I mean,
I do find it okay but I find I'm not overhelmed
by it a lot and then it was just like: why
is she doing this? At some point she finds
a guy she likes but she is like, 'oh no, I
need to keep kissing through the alphabet!'
And she is not even happy with what she's
doing and I'm just like: why are you still
doing it in that case? Also I was not happy
with some of these kisses because they are
like surprise kisses. And she doesn't, y'know,
hint at it or ask the person. And I don't
find that that's okay. I wouldn't like if
that happened to me and I don't like that
she is doing this to these guys. And it just
felt a whole lot young. It was a really young
read - like young YOUNG young adult. And I'm
just not about that life. So this wasn't a
book for me.
I also buddy read Blackfish City by Sam J.
Miller with Shannon from It Starts At Midnight.
I'll leave a link to her blog and instagram
below. And this is a science fiction read
that I couldn't say is adult but I couldn't
say is young adult anymore. Maybe somewhere
in between. And I did enjoy this one but I
did have problems with it too. So it's a very
long read, and I get a bit nervous going into
long reads lately so I was a bit - ooh - but
I read it on the plane and managed to finish
it and enjoy it. I think the world building
was done spectacularly well. If you want to
go and see a well developed world with political
problems, with poverty problems, with like,
really a lot of problems that you'll see in
the real world but it's like a science fiction
entirely futuristic world, then you should
definitely read this book. The world building
is just stunning. However, it switches perspectives
between characters a lot and I didn't really
like any of the characters. The characters
felt very 2D and underdeveloped. And the plot
was very good but it focuses on a lot of things
and at some points I wondered how it was all
going to tie together. It does tie together
and the plot at the end I really appreciated
it. I really enjoyed the themes that it brought
up and I enjoyed what it discussed. And I
really thought it was great to see so much
LGBT+ rep. Including gay and lesbian characters,
and also including non-binary characters.
So it was really great to have all of that
representation and brilliant world building,
but I'm about the characters, and those were
just very 2D.
And the last book I read was The 39 Clues
Doublecross, and I believe it was The Titanic.
I'll have a picture of the cover up here.
But this one was Jude Watson. I started the
39 clues original series when I was younger.
When I was the age for middle grade and I
read the first one to four books. Never finished
the series because I grew out of it and I
got distracted by other books, like Twilight,
and young adult reads. But then I decided
that maybe I don't dislike the middle grade
genre and I'm going to give it a go. So I
had this review copy and I read that one.
It was great and nostalgic to go back to the
characters. However, I felt like some of the
characters had really changed and they weren't
changes that I liked. And that makes sense
because there has been a second series since
the one that I had originally read and this
is the third series, but I didn't really like
the change in characters. The plot was just
mediocre and it was a bit... nothing really
was happening for a lot of it. And it didn't
really contribute to the big plot. I can see
how it is a set up for the rest of the series,
but I don't think middle grade is my genre
anymore. A lot of the jokes felt young, but
at the same time there was some death in there,
so it seemed not too young. I just couldn't
really put my finger on what wasn't working
for me with this book, but it just wasn't
one for me.
Well, those are the six books I read in July.
We're like halfway through August by the time
that I post this and I'm reading so much more
in August so I can't wait for my August wrap
up. Please let me know in the comment section
below what books you've been reading lately
and what your thoughts on them were. And if
you've read any of these, let me know.
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