The Best & Worst Books I've Read This Summer 📚 June + July Wrap-Up

I liked the book overall. I thought it was thoughtprovoking. I thought it had really cool ideas.

This was not what I wanted from this series at all. I found it very disappointing. I also found it kind of boring for a lot of the book.

I just felt like the plot was very slow. It was pretty meandering. I didn't love how the ideas were handled, and I just didn't enjoy reading the food descriptions at all.

I also just didn't find it funny. The humor didn't work for me. I didn't like the writing style.

So, I admired aspects of the novel. I found parts of it interesting. I didn't dislike my experience reading it, but I felt like it didn't quite come together for me.

I ended up really liking this a lot more than I expected to. I found it very heartwarming, tender, and sweet and wholesome.

The second book picked up quite a bit.

I think the ending had a pretty intense emotional impact, but overall the reading experience left me pretty conflicted. I think just for me personally, this is not one of my favorites of Steven Graham Jones work.

KB is non-binary and it was really fascinating and heartbreaking at times many of the times to follow their story and to experience their life along with them. And again, I'm not much of a memoir reader, but I really felt like this was worth the time and very impactful and even if you're not typically a memoir reader, I think this was worth the read.

And the third book continued in that vein, was much more fast-paced for me. I was more invested in the characters.

I did obviously like it a lot, but the first book was very much a lot of setup, a lot of getting us ready for the rest of the trilogy, and it's 900 pages, so that's a lot to ask. There is quite a bit of character development through the series. The characters all go on a huge journey and I did end up loving a number of them, but the first book was rough because I hated pretty much every character.

This was absolutely fantastic. It's sappic. It's thematically rich.

I would highly recommend it even if you're not much of a memoir person. I'm not much of a memoir person but this is definitely one of the best memoirs I have ever read.

I am giving this five stars despite how much I struggled and despite the fact that not every story in here is five stars by a long shot. But Edgar Poe is a genius. Some of his stories are absolutely incredible.

As with some other books that I've really enjoyed that use second person narration, like the fifth season, there's always a reason, and there's a reason here, too.

However, this is an absolutely fascinating book and it's one of those books where upon completion, I had some criticisms. I had some things that were not fully quite clicking for me and I ended up giving it four stars. But it's it's one of those books that just keeps lingering.

However, overall, I found it pretty funny, and I actually thought that the character work was the best part of this novel. And the characters felt like adults to me, just dramatic adults with big personalities.

So, I've already talked about this a lot, but I thought it was absolutely stunning. I was so entranced by it. It was It's my favorite book that I've read all year so far.

The book itself in its totality was not totally perfect for me, but I did think it was very well done overall. I found it incredibly interesting, and I will definitely be looking forward to reading more Andrew Joseph White.

However, most of the novel I enjoyed so much. I thought it was so beautifully written. and I thought it was fascinating and eerie and strange, very atmospheric.

It truly feels like Andrew Joseph White puts so much of himself into his characters and so much vulnerability and honesty. And I just can't help but deeply appreciate that as a character-driven reader.

And I did feel like Desire's voice came through very strongly. And she had some really interesting stories to tell, and there was a lot of humor injected through everything, but also vulnerability, as one would hope for in a memoir.