June 2024 in Books

Don’t mind me in May 2024 stating that I have no idea why I’m not reading as much because duh, I’m pregnant. Most pregnant people I’ve talked to have said that their reading habits definitely took a hit while they were pregnant. I also feel like this month was very… sad. My 2 physical books I read were both 2 stars (despite me being excited about them both) and I finished up 2 more of the series I’ve been reading/listening to and I wasn’t excited about it (I just wanted them to be done with). The only book plus side I had was that I listened to the last Harry Potter book, which is the only highlight I have for the whole month and that has kicked off a movie marathon.

June was a whirlwind. We finished up our Portland/Seattle trip (I swear I’m going to write about this) where I was utterly exhausted. My first trimester was full of non-stop nausea from Week 7 to Week 10. Then from Week 11 to Week 13, it was a rollercoaster of nausea. Will I be able to eat lunch today? If so, will I become grossed out mid-eating and be unable to finish? Luckily, my nausea wasn’t terrible while on our trip so I was able to enjoy a lot! Since I hit Week 14, I’ve been pretty good, food wise. A slew of food aversions (no cravings) that will ruin my appetite mid-meal but otherwise, not too bad. What did hit me was extreme exhaustion – which I hadn’t experienced before. This was not a “lay by a body of water” relaxation vacation. This was a go-go-go vacation. But I could not go-go-go. By the afternoon, I was usually so pooped we would have to go back to our AirBnB to relax (once I took a 30 minute nap in our car to revitalize) or nap for a few hours so that I could rally for dinner.

While my exhaustion hasn’t been so bad (I still nap sometimes – which is unheard of for non-pregnant Lauren), my reading has been sitting by the wayside. June was pretty jam packed with social obligations and fun stuff to do but I never brought a book along and never took any “out and about” reading pictures. It wasn’t until the end of June that I realized I hadn’t taken any of my pictures for the month. I was so focused on getting a photo for our pregnancy announcement that I completely forgot! So I hope everyone enjoys photos of the many bookshelves I’ve seen along my life journey.

The Lost Journals of Sacajewea by Debra Magpie Earling

My Rating: 2/5
What’s it about: In this historical fiction book, we follow a young Native American girl named Sacajewea after she has been kidnapped by White men and forced into slavery.
My Review: I wanted to love this book so much. It has such a great idea. When I picked up this book, it had over 4 stars on GoodReads (which has now dropped to 3.66 – still too high in my opinion). I read through some high reviews and my favorites are all the ones claiming that those who don’t like this book (or think it’s poorly/weirdly written) are too stupid to understand the book. Ah yes, the “You just don’t get it” fall back by people who like something that others don’t. It’s okay. You can simply say you liked the book and someone else can simply say they didn’t and we can all go our separate ways. I wanted to start with the fact that this book is supposed to read like a journal. Our assumption is that Sacajewea doesn’t speak English as her native language. The journal reads like someone who speaks English poorly but is writing out their journals in English. Theoretically, it would be a translation which means that someone had to go in and translate it and they should/would fix grammar. It was just oddly written and it really threw me off a lot. I get that it’s from a child’s perspective and there’s a lot of dreamscapes going on during it, but it was rough. It was hard to keep characters straight as so many would pop up randomly and then disappear again. There are several r*pe scenes and several discussions regarding r*pe – all including literal children. There’s abuse everywhere. This is not an easy book to read and you’re going to be disturbed. A lot. Everything done to Sacajewea (and Native Americans, in general) was brutal and the author doesn’t shy away. I think that this story would have been better told with Sacajewea telling her story as an adult. The “lyrical” and “dream like” prose did nothing to help the reader and her story ends just when you want it to begin. 

After I finished the book, I did more research and I remembered why, when I was a kid, I stopped reading those “Diary of some famous lady” books. Because it’s fiction. Not a lot is known about Sacajewea so the author had to take a lot of liberties (which I’m sure was done after a lot of research, but still). You can’t go into this book knowing nothing about her (I didn’t) because there’s so much that’s left out of what we actually do know.

A Touch of Chaos (Hades x Persephone Saga #4) by Scarlett St. Clair

My Rating: 2/5
What’s it about: The gods and goddesses are mad at one another but mostly Persephone and they’re like, trying to overthrow everyone else and basically just acting like the regular old Greek Gods/Goddesses. Oh and Hades gets kidnapped for a bit so him and Persephone have to have dream sex.
My Review: Phew. I barely made it. I have to say that I almost forgot what happened in the last book and this one just dives right in. Sometimes I wish that books had a “previously on” video that plays automatically and reminds me of the previous book. I’m going to address the elephant in the room and just tell you that I skipped over some sex scenes. One of them was 12 pages long. 12 pages. Why? The amount of dream sex that Persephone and Hades had was absolutely bananas. Hades, you’re trying to survive the Labyrinth (not the fun David Bowie kind) but you’ve got time to have several naps so you can bang your wife? What? I’m not even going to touch on the scenes with Theseus and women who don’t want to have sex with him because no. Except to say that both books I read this month had lots of r*pe in it so that’s GREAT. Now onto all the random stuff that doesn’t even need to happen or be mentioned. There’s so many things that were brought up that never happens (i.e. Zeus offering a prize for any of the gods or goddesses to bring Persephone to him in chains… and literally no one even tries to do this). This book had major pacing issues. It was a SLOG for 90% of the book. I almost put it down several times. 

I read through the reviews and apparently there’s side-quest books that aren’t part of the series but help to make the series make more sense. I almost bumped this rating down to a 1 because fuck that. No way. I hate these off shoot books. This series went from a top for me to a very bottom – I’m selling all the books.

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Smoke Bitten (Mercy Thompson #12) by Patiricia Briggs (audiobook)

My Rating: 4/5
What’s it about: Underhill creates a portal in Mercy’s back yard so she can she her buddy Aiden more often. Unfortunately, a smoke creature escaped and is fascinated with Mercy (who isn’t?).
My Review: At this point, I just wanted to finish the series. The GoodReads ratings are so insanely high for this one (and it was a Nominee for the GoodReads Choice Award for Best Fantasy in 2020). Then again, I’m still giving it a 4 because it’s still a solid series. I’ve been a little bored since book #10 but instead of boredom, I think it might have been burn out. My recommendation to you is to slow the hell down with these babies. The fae creature in this book was very interesting – it can look like anyone and its bite controls you. Mercy’s strength and independence is what has driven me through this series. While she gets help from other around her (no harm in asking for it!), she very much makes her own calls to save the day – which I’m a huge fan of. What I am not a fan of is the constant pack dynamic changes. It seems like everything is hugely unstable and each wolf is ready to tear their family apart. It’s incredibly different from most lore (but what isn’t in this book) and it’s off putting to me. Where is the loyalty? Adam and Mercy’s “distance” throughout the book was so annoying. We are in book 12 people, you need to learn how to communicate. I think one of my least favorite tropes is lack of communication. In the end, this book just seemed like filler, waiting for a bigger conflict on the horizon.

Soul Taken (Mercy Thompson #13) by Patiricia Briggs (audiobook)

My Rating: 3/5
What’s it about: Time to save another vampire! But this time, it’s our sometimes enemy, Wulfe. While Mercy investigates this, she discovers that many supernatural creatures have been abducted from her Tri-Cities area, an area she vowed to protect for supernatural creatures. Now it’s time to find who’s taking her people. 
My Review: Now that I’m at the end of what is available for the series (I think #14 came out in June 2024 but I’m going to give it some time), I’m looking back at the beginning. When I thought that Samual and Stefen might be a threat to Mercy and Adam’s relationship. It was made up to be such a triangle/square situation and Adam just… happened. Maybe I’ve read Twilight a touch too many times but I feel like this set up at the beginning, with nothing ever happening, was quite a let down! I was a little excited going into this because I always like the vampires in books (even though I’m Team Jacob) but Wulfe… never shows up. So that’s cool. It’s just an ongoing awkward non-communication but mating bond relationship show with Mercy and Adam (honestly do not feel their chemistry anymore). These books have never been spicy, despite being considered a romance. Maybe Amish people would find this spicy but girl, this is the 2020s – we have fairy sex now. Get on with it. I’m also so annoyed that it’s book #13 and Mercy still doesn’t have a goddamn female friend. Does this series even pass the Bechdel test?? Oh also, the reveal of Sherwood’s memories?? I’m still confused. Wtf. What is going on. How did Bran just… let this happen? One reviewer said “I did not LOVE this book, but I also did not HATE it. I was more frustrated than anything.” and that’s it exactly. I finally caved and will say this was a 3 star cause I’m just frustrated. I wanted more.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter #7) by J.K. Rowling (audiobook)

My Rating: 5/5
What’s it about: Fine. Harry is looking for horcruxes while still looking into You-Know-Who’s mind every once in a while. Ron is a big baby and runs away for a while. Everyone suddenly forgives Snape.
My Review: I’m a huge baby and I still cry every time I read this book or watch the movies (specifically in the movie when McGonagall tells the statues to defend Hogwarts – tears, every time). I don’t have much to say other than I love these books. I will always love these books. I do stop before the NINETEEN YEARS LATER bullshit because everything is wrapped into too much of a pretty little bow. I do want to say that I will fight anyone who says Snape is at all a good guy. The ends do not justify the means and no matter what, he abused children regularly and without remorse. He was also insanely obsessed with a woman who wanted nothing to do with him. Sure, that ended up having to be part of the WHOLE THING but in the end, when you think about it, it’s fucking creepy. I said what I said.

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Tell me what your last favorite fiction book was to help get me out of this funk (is it a funk or is it just pregnancy?)