I’m also going to do a summer reading review. It’s not as expansive as Mia because I only got back into the reading groove properly about two weeks ago since work has been insane. For the sake of making my summer reading list a little bulkier, we’ll define the summer from when I graduated to Labor Day. I’ll go in chronological order of when I read them, giving my rating and some thoughts for each. For some books, I’ll probably have a lot more thoughts than others. We’ll see how this goes.
1. How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith
This is a book I probably should have read a while ago. It was the Go Big Read book for UW last fall, and I had a couple of classes get us to read parts of it that I enjoyed, but then I put it down and got distracted by the rest of the reading for that semester. That’s part of being a history major I guess; I like to read history but it’s less fun to do it when it absorbs all of my time. I picked it back up a couple of weeks after I graduated and before I started my job, and I still really enjoyed it. The book covers the history of slavery in the US through several different locations throughout American history. Smith manages to weave history and modern-day events that feel like a natural extension of the conversations that have taken place around racism and its place in our nation in the last couple of years. Each chapter can stand on its own, telling the untold stories surrounding that place in conversation with the prevailing mainstream history of that place and modern reactions, but they weave together to tell a powerful story about how the stories we tell about our history are important and impact how we see our nation. Smith is a talented historical writer, making difficult topics compelling. I don’t think it’s necessarily the most groundbreaking piece of historical writing ever, but I think the point of the book is to take this difficult history and make it digestible for anyone to read and understand. He’s able to take these figures that he meets and that we read about in the sources he uses and bring their stories to life on the page. Overall, I liked it a lot.
Rating: 4.5/5
2. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yaros
This is fantasy Divergent with dragons. Literally every aspect of this feels like Divergent. It’s not bad just really funny to me. The way the protagonist is described, the weird duo love interest thing that eventually fades off into just the real love interest who’s an emo superior, the immediate best friend, the clothes the Riders are described to wear… Even all the things they have to do for classes seem to mimic the Dauntless initiation like the fighting and the physical challenges. Its the kind of book I would have been obnoxious about at age 13. It’s not particularly groundbreaking, it’s all tropes seen before, but they are done well. The characters are compelling, the setting is engaging, and the political twist is easy to spot a mile away with any critical thought but still kind of cool. There are a lot of interesting paths for the sequel to take, and I will definitely be reading it when it comes out later this fall.
Rating: 4.5/5
3. Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood
This is the third of her books that I’ve read, and I would say that’s basically the same as the other two. That’s not even necessarily bad since it’s a formula I kind of like, but it’s just so funny to me. Every one of her books is some flavor of misunderstanding enemy to lovers in a STEM setting where our girl boss protagonist has a conflict with and then eventually falls for their coworker. The protagonist faces some sort of sexism because they are a woman in their field but they eventually overcome it. Steamy steamy romance occurs and they live happily ever after, the end. I will say this one does stand out in a number of ways. For one, our protagonist Elsie actually has some sort of fault in that she is an incessant and anxious people pleaser who is forced to change in order to get what she wants. The characters are interesting, the romance feels well done; it does what needs to. This is also the series that made the author famous because it was published Reylo fanfiction, so yeah, there is a considerable amount of fanfic stank on the story (if that makes sense at all), but I don’t think that’s necessarily bad. Those tropes are admittedly compelling, so overall it was a pleasant read. Groundshaking, earth-shattering, life changing? Absolutely not. But it did make for a pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
Rating: 3.5/5
4. Icebreaker by Hannah Grace
This is the horniest book I’ve ever read. I don’t even think that’s a particularly high achievement- I’m not the porny book kind of person- I just needed to preface that. The book is your standard enemies-to-lovers kind of fair but in the horniest way possible. Every other chapter after a certain point had a least some graphic material. I think the thing that made this book stand out to me was how targeted it felt at young adults? If that makes sense? The references and the humor seemed to really be aimed at that college-age range-ish. That’s probably not even that remarkable, there’s probably tons of books with this energy and that target demographic but I’m just not looking for them so I don’t see them. It just feels weird. Also spoilers from here on out, but I hate the ending. During the book, we find out the female lead Anatasia was adopted and, because of that and the horror that is childbirth, wants to adopt. However, the weird fixation this book had on other people getting pregnant and the birth control they were using made me go hmmm I wonder when she’s going to get pregnant and if that is going to be part of the big climax. The good news is that it isn’t part of the big climax. The bad news is that it does happen in the epilogue and it’s talked about like it’s no biggie. That’s fine, I guess, women having families isn’t a bad thing obviously, but why did the author make such a big deal to point out Anastasia wanted to adopt??? It’s so weird to me. There’s also a fair amount of therapy talk, which is important I guess because it’s part of how Anastasia and Nick are able to make their relationship functional and non-toxic, but it was wild going back and forth from sex scenes to deep emotional conversations. A little bit of whiplash there. I think the best part of the book is the supporting cast, particularly the rest of the guys on the hockey team, who really do a lot of the work in making the main characters so likable and the world so interesting. I’d read a sequel just about them if I could. Overall, it is probably a good book if this kind of book is your cup of tea, just don’t make the mistake of reading this book at work like I did.
Rating: 3/5
5. The Agathas by Kathleen Glasgow and Liz Lawson
I think the best way to get me to buy a book is to have an interesting enough concept and invoke Agatha Christie because that’s what happened with this book. The sad thing is while the mystery itself was fine, it didn’t really scream Agatha Christie to me, just a kind of generic mystery. All the pieces were there for it to be really good, it’s just a lot of the pieces felt just a little underdone like a pancake that hasn’t been cooked through. I’ll eat it still and I’ll like it but it’s weird, yaknow? The characters are all just a little too unlikeable. The one thing I really like is the worldbuilding and the mystique of the town. That’s the most Agatha Christie thing about it. All this criticism even though I intend to read the sequel because I’m hoping the characters can just be likable like they’re so close to being, so there is potential.
Rating: 2.5/5
6. All of Our Hidden Gifts by Caroline O’Donoghue
I wasn’t expecting to like this book that much if I’m going to be honest. I was in Barnes and Noble, the cover caught my eye, and after reading the summary, I was like “hmm I don’t normally buy into witchy stuff but the book has really good autumn vibes so I’ll give it a try.” And you know what? I’m resisting the urge to buy a tarot card set now. It was that good. I’m going to avoid spoiling anything because in theory, I’d like Mia to read this (although I totally get it if you don’t want to). The book follows a girl named Maeve who finds a pack of tarot cards that seem to have some mysterious properties. She ends up giving tarot card readings to everyone in school, including her former best friend who then proceeds to go missing. The rest of the book follows Maeve as she attempts to figure out what happened to her old friend and how to get her back. This book had a lot of things going for it. I didn’t know the book was set in Ireland before I was reading it, and there were a lot of phrases and slang I hadn’t heard since I was studying abroad and that made me happy. This book feels like a lot of different genres pushed into one, and I did like most of them. The romance was the strongest part of the book by far. The chapters focused on that gave me butterflies, and I reread them multiple times because I liked them so much. The weakest part of the book was the mystery because it wasn’t super consistent and I don’t think it was developed enough for me to be really engaged in it at all. I’m excited to read the rest of the series.
Rating: 4/5
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