August 2022 Books

New Books Read

The House in the Cerulean Sea by T. J. Klune***
Book Hangover Alert**
So great. This book was like a whimsical and endearing combination of A Man Called Ove and Ms. Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, which doesn’t sound like it should work, but it really does. I loved the character arc of Linus and I was very much invested in the love story. I adored all the characters and I would love to read a sequel to this book. A book about love and acceptance.
5/5 extraordinary kids

The Bone Shard Emperor by Andrea Stewart***
Drowning Empire book 2 of 3
Aaaaaand now we wait for the third book. This book was a little bit of a second book in the way some trilogies have of the second book sort of just being a bridge to the final conflict. But it was still good and I liked seeing the development of each of the characters. I’m still obsessed with Mephi. And there were several twists that surprised me in this one.
4/5 bone shards

The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie
CW: imperialism
This book was okay. It’s not one of Christie’s best works. I thought the mystery was a little convoluted and not as satisfying to unravel as some of her other books. I did like the perspectives of Anne and Sir Eustace. I liked how plucky Anne was and I found Sir Eustace very amusing in the way he complained about everything. I didn’t really feel like I need the love story though.
3/5 diamonds

The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan***
Book Hangover Alert**
This is my favorite Amy Tan book. I loved how it explored multiple generations of daughters’ relationships with their mothers. I love Tan’s writing style and I love the way her stories weave forward and backward in time.
5/5 ghosts

The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis
CW: sexual assault, sexism
To be honest, I think the Netflix show was better. Is this blasphemy? The show is a really faithful adaptation and all the best parts of the book are in the show. The biggest difference is probably the character of Jolene, who in the show is a really great female character and a good friend to Beth. (The next part of this review I don’t consider a spoiler because the event is not important to the main plot, but stop reading now if you don’t want to know.) In the book Jolene sexually assaults Beth in the orphanage when they are children and then this is never addressed again. Not only was it entirely unnecessary to the plot, it also is never resolved. Beth never realizes what happened to her and she and Jolene continue to be good friends. I wish Beth had had other female friends in the book. I also felt like Tevis was really hung up on how attractive every character was and seemed like he went out of his way to make Beth a sexual character. While there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, it seemed unnecessary.
3.5/5 pawns

The Spies That Bind by Ally Carter
Prequel to the Gallagher Girls series
This was a fun little read. It’s a prequel novella to the Gallagher Girls series, which I loved. It was fun to see how Cammie, Bex, and Liz first met, and it had all the charm and humor of the later novels. I also loved the theme of belonging.
3.5/5 rolls with room temperature butter

Books I didn’t finish

A Touch of Darkness by Scarlett St. Clair
I know I just said last month that I almost always finish books, even if I’m not enjoying them, and here I am, saying again that I didn’t finish a book. But I’ve decided that I should really just read stuff I like and no one is forcing me to finish books I don’t like. So I stopped reading this one. I was pretty disappointed. I love mythological retellings and I love the story of Hades and Persephone, but there was nothing fresh or new about this. It was basically a prose version of Lore Olympus, which is much better. The writing was repetitive and Persephone was annoying. I read about a third of it before I gave up.
1/5 dangerous underworld rivers

**Book Hangover Alert indicates the kind of book that will leave you full up on love. Satisfied, but wishing the book never had to end. You’ll be laying on the floor with no idea what to do with yourself (other friends have called this feeling Good Book Depression or say that certain books necessitate Floor Time). This is the kind of book that gets its teeth in you and won’t let go easily. After the last page you’ll be thinking about this book for a long time. You’ll bother all your friends trying to get them to read it so that you won’t be alone in your Hangover.

***This book is part of my Books for a Social Conscience series! Read The House in the Cerulean Sea for more LGBTQ+ representation in fantasy. Read The Bone Shard Emperor for an Asian mythology inspired fantasy. Read The Bonesetter’s Daughter for an intergenerational look at a Chinese-American family.

Reads marked as part of the Books for a Social Conscience series will regularly address topics like race and racism, colonialism and post-colonialism, LGBTQ+ experience, feminism, BIPOC experience, social and political issues, history, identity, class, disability experience, immigration, gun violence, poverty, colorism, environmentalism, and more! The goal of these books is to diversify the stories we’re reading, grow our empathy for those who are different from us, and amplify voices who are often silenced.