Summer Reading Locations!

 Hello dear readers! 

This summer is just flying by and I am trying to keep up with balancing work and finding joy for my family. I want them to feel like they have a summer. It's hard as working parents to figure that out. In between that have been some joyful pockets of reading time! I always think, summer, I must read outside. My porch is a lovely oasis for reading and not baking while doing so. As a goal for this summer, I wanted to try and read around bodies of water- get out into the world! So far, the list is not specific but: river, lake, pool, ocean, bath. It's been too hot for a bath. However, I have been blessed and managed to get some reading at a local lake (while paddle boarding, my book only got a little wet from the dog going on and off the SUP), a pool (who knew quick dips in the pool and then back to reading zone could be so refreshing), and the ocean. The ocean is where my soul resets itself, and I try to visit any beach at least twice a year. So, if anyone wants inspiration, quick day dreaming, whatever- here are my memories of reading by water this summer, so far... Happy reading and happy summer friends! 

Beachy Reading

Aaah, pool reading.

Lake Book on the move!

When I finally look up...

Poolside Joy

        

Katherine Center's The Love Haters

 I really enjoyed this book! I knew in my heart it would be a Rom-Com and brighten my day. What I wasn’t expecting is that this book was a surprising enemy to lovers’ trope with your body and loving your body. If you have to fall in love with little parts and bits of yourself (pinky, ankle, earlobe, etc.) to end up loving yourself as a whole- it is worth the journey. I loved the positive messaging, gentle reminders and nurturing Katherine Center shared with me.

Falling in love is never easy or a straight route, but in the end it’s everything. I adored The Love Haters! I loved the culture of appreciation Katie, and her best friend instigated, and the body positivity Katie had to practice. It sounds like something simple, but it can be so hard yet doable! The story and the characters are quirky and sweet. I found myself laughing and humming happily while reading from start to finish. I wanted to hang out with the characters, go shopping at Vitamin C, rally and cheer them on although, I would def pass on being in a thunderstorm with Hutch’s dog. Also- everything I’ve wondered about the downside of a houseboat- totally confirmed. Hard pass on those romantic notions Sleepless in Seattle instilled in us watching that romantic movie. The Love Haters was a wonderful love story on multiple levels, and I truly enjoyed the escape (sorry Ms. Center I know in the author’s note you said it wasn’t an escape but this time it was for me) it allowed me. I will definitely re-read this book in the future, especially when I need a boost and motivation that love is more than just romantic love and you must start by loving yourself…. And surrounding yourself with a kaleidoscope of colors. I hope you love it too!

ACOTAR: My Weighted Blanket of Comfort

 

May... It's been a rough month where my stress is up, my anxiety is overflowing, and I just needed comfort. I wanted to listen to some audiobooks that would hug me during the day, take me out into a beautiful world of fiction and were like a weighted blanket comforting me or old friend visiting me. I reread the first 3 books of Sarah J. Maas's A Court of Thorns and Roses. They were everything I needed, wanted, and helped on the hard days.  BONUS- It's A Court of Thorns and Roses' 10 year anniversary! I am not going to try and review the books but I will share that they are all 5 star reviews for me. I just love them- the world it's set in, the mind map we are given as we walk/fly/winnow places, the characters and their interactions, the adventures and mysteries, the battles and training, the love, laughter, and loathing, the descriptions Maas provides that suck a reader in with smell, taste, touch, sight, sounds... I am going to try some other audiobooks, see how that goes, but if I need more warm reading hugs, I have two more books waiting for me in the ACOTAR series and I am excited to reread Nesta's story for the first time! 

What are your comforting rereads? 

                                                      

Chloe Walsh's Binding 13 & Keeping 13

The boys of Tommen will bounce all over your heart. This is your only
warning. The Boys of Tommen is a series, but the first two books are a duet. This is not a duet for you if you are looking for sweet romance with lightness. This gets dark with everyday monsters beating at you.

A few friends recommended Binding 13 to me. I put it off thinking it was just another New Adult novel, and I didn’t want the angst I assumed the novel would be riddled with, but I am so happy I finally read both books (I thought it was just the one book, but no, of course not! I couldn’t put them down. Have you ever watched Beverly Hills 90210 or One Tree Hill? The kids in those shows were so much older than their age with what they did, went through, experienced, and you rarely felt like you were in a Young Adult series. This series is like that. The players are minors in high school, but it so doesn’t feel like that. We are in Ireland and Shannon, who is our FMC is attending a new private school called Tommen. She needs a new start away from the bullying she has experienced at multiple public schools, and it’s not just verbal bullying, but physical bullying as well. Shannon needs a safe place to bloom and grow. Is Tommen the place to be her safe haven? If Johnny has anything to do with it, she will find it at Tommen. Johnny is instantly in love with his Shannon like the lake. What he doesn’t know is that Shannon is also bullied and tortured at home by her abusive father. My heart breaks for her. I wondered what I would do if I was her friend and knew about what she and her family go through daily. Binding 13 ends in a horrific cliffhanger and Keeping 13 immediately picks up and whisks you away with Shannon and Johnny and ugh…. Wow.

Just.... wow. What a journey! It's an insane rollercoaster of emotions and I just wasn't ever quite sure where the author was going to take us or do with the characters or if there would even be a happy ending! I just didn't know! There is so much love, heart break, joy and renewal, hope, trust, angst and rebuilding of selves in these books. Johnny's parents are simply the best. The friends help break up the dark and heavy of Shannon and her brothers world. I found myself laughing often with them. Chloe Walsh, what an epic journey. I will be thinking about this duet for a long time.

Grady Hendrix's The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires

 

This book…. Wow. It was so alive. This is my first Grady Hendrix novel, and I wasn’t sure what I was getting into, but I am happy to have read the book, although, it was definitely a like/dislike affair. I will gush that Grady Hendrix is a true wordsmith. I found myself almost sick to my stomach with how real he painted simple actions, like describing an elderly person chewing crumbly food and then drinking water and the crumbs that would be submerged and, ugh, my stomach still gets queasy, or scenes he throws us into. So real! I also found myself reacting emotionally to the book, usually in anger or annoyance, and had to take mini breaks and then come back to dive in for more.  I had to remind myself that this is classified as horror genre and outside of my usual reading genres.  

The story was structured around a book club of women who love reading true crime novels. This plays into our main gal, Patricia, deducing what is happening in her town as her true crime riddled mind turns to classic vampire lore, what to pay attention to, and how to catch a killer? A vampire?! Gotta love book clubs. I also felt there was an undercurrent of the Salem Witch Trials theme in the book with how the husbands treated and reacted to the wives and the trickle out affect of that with other characters and plot. It is an interesting novel and a wild ride deducing what is happening to these people and this town. It’s also gruesome. Can Patricia prove there is a vampire in their suburban community? In the end, I think I like my sexy romance vampires over the more horror genre of this one. 

Jaysea Lynn's For Whom the Belle Tolls

 For Whom the Belle Tolls is a delightful, enchanting, sassy book as we follow Lily into the Afterlife upon her death. She always worked customer service type jobs in her mortal life, so when she sees that even in her afterlife people are awful to the front desk staff, she decides to help. Lily creates the Hellp desk in the hell portal and creates a fulfilling and beautiful afterlife for herself, reclaiming her sarcastic self and releasing built up anger she had bottled up not being able to tell people in her mortal life- the coveted honest answers to go with their attitude to the help. If you dish it just remember you can rejuvenate after Lily is done with you. Lily finds joy and purpose with her new demon friends and a life unexpected blossoms as she forgives her past life and lives her afterlife to its fullest potential.

I thoroughly enjoyed the entire mapped out universe of Afterlife the author created as well as the souls and denizens of it. The author throws in demons and deities we have heard of throughout myth and history as well as your everyday characters. The support characters truly make this book the snarky, therapeutic, love story that it is, and we needed it to be. It also refilled my customer service cup (yup- I get to deal with people on a daily basis as well and have to bite my tongue often with the answers I can give vs would LOVE to give) reading about Lily putting souls in their place when they tried to play their usual shrewd games or threw fits for having to go to whatever level of hell they earned. Not on Lily’s watch people! She transforms the front area of Hell.  Bel & Lily’s love story was beautiful and the family and life they built was satisfying. I think my Paradise would be almost the exact same as Lily’s with a sentient hobbit house built for cozy reading, watching movies with my kitty, and not having to clean any dishes. For Whom the Belle Tolls is truly a sexy, funny, romance novel with some darkness sprinkled throughout, but only to create a deeper story we can sink our teeth, our blades & hearts into.

Thank you, S, for the wonderful recommendation. I found myself bringing it up in conversation often as I was reading it, especially to my co-workers. Most aren’t ready for a demon romance, but at least I expanded their options.

Elsie Silver's Wild Love

 I love Wild Love! It kept me wanting and obsessing over finding time to read it. It pulled me in and I had to know what Rosie might say to Ford next or what funny thing would occur. Mixed in with that are tender and sweet moments between parents and their children, lovers, and siblings. My reading bucket was filled to the brim with Wild Love.  I adore Rosie, Ford, Cora, Ford’s parents, West, Willa, Marylin…. Everyone! The characters are just so wonderfully lovely, flawed, and honest. I found myself so drawn into the banter and conversations I was hanging on every interaction as they filled me with joy, love and laughter. I love when the author gave us what wild love is, I love the actions behind the words, I love the smart-ass exchanges so much. This book is absolutely going on my favorites shelf to reread in the future when I need a pick me up. Now I am off to dive into more novels by Elsie Silver to see if she too will be on my Rom-Com favorites shelf with authors like Jill Shalvis and Susan Elizabeth Phillips.

Meghan Quinn's How My Neighbor Stole Christmas

This book is a laugh out loud, delightful spin on How the Grinch Stole Christmas. It’s a hilarious, competitive, creative, festive and sometimes deliciously spicy, romantic comedy. Can I just say, “Oh My Candy Cane!” I don’t think I’ll see a fruity candy cane this holiday season and not think of this book ever again. The things they do with it… phew! Good thing it snowed today to help cool me off. Although, unlike Storee, I love snow.

I found the author interviews with Cole sprinkled throughout the novel and their squabbling absolutely delightful. The obvious mentioning of “wouldn’t this be a great Lovemark movie?” or “this is a ___ trope.” Made me laugh because we are all thinking it and I loved the author was like, “DUH! Yes, to all!” I love Storee and Cole, the Christmas Kringle competition, the town, the support characters were amazing, I just loved it all and wasn’t expecting to. Also, my parents have a doll room with Madame Alexander dolls. My grandma collected them for me. I am 100% Team Storee that it’s nearly impossible to sleep with all their eyes facing you and following you around the room.  

How My Neighbor Stole Christmas went deeper than I expected, bringing depth to the story and characters you craved. With emotions flowing all around and Christmas lights twinkling around town, it was a true Christmas gift for us, the readers. Bonus- the cover is perfect and so enticing. I cannot wait to reread this treasure during future Christmas seasons. 

Pierce Brown's Red Rising

 

Oh, Red Rising… my dear readers who joyfully encouraged me to read this book- thank you. It is just as amazing as you said it would be! I don’t want to give away spoilers so I will be careful with my gushing.  Pierce Brown gives us a drawn-out writing style that just smacks the reader in the face with “you will not have resolution with this first book… you get to keep going, just like Darrow.” There is so much world building, but the author has a writing style that keeps it simple, smart, not wordy, he gets the point across without taking pages of description, I just loved it. It’s like Brown was just as excited to write the experiences and story as we are to contain the words in our reading hearts. I was shocked when I wasn’t even halfway through the book and HOW MUCH HAD ALREADY HAPPENED! It was crazy!

The yearlong game the kids are thrown into felt as muddled to me as it did to them, I just got to be clean and warm while experiencing it. No one really knew what the heck was happening just that they didn’t want to be enslaved, and the time would eventually run out to return to the real world. For a while, I wondered why the author seemed to speed thru Darrow’s transformation from Red to Gold to play the game for sooo long but it was to highlight the nuisances of change to Darrow’s core that have to happen to make Eo’s wish and dream come true. The writing tempo fits the speed of action and storytelling. I love getting to know the other characters (Sevro and Mustang especially) and how they might help or hinder Darrow in what his new future will be. *insert a long wolf howl* I so want Darrow to be right- the game, the world is changing, it’s not just his feelings of being top wolf in school. I cannot wait for these kids to get showers with bars of soap and tubes of toothpaste. I cannot imagine the cloud of smell the surrounds them.

This book is just an epic rollercoaster, and I can’t help but join the fans of Red Rising. I also am just mystified at what Pierce Brown has in store for us knowing it’s a 7-book series! Again, the number of things that happened in book 1 was incredible. If I had to do a general feeler for who might like this book, beyond sci-fi lovers (It all takes place on Mars and surrounding planets! This was new for me as well). I feel like lovers of The Hunger Games, Game of Thrones, Fourth Wing, maybe Brandon Sanderson, maybe Joe Abercrombie, would love this series to fill their reading droughts with.