July 2024 in Books

Yeah, 2 months in a row where I didn’t take a reading while out and about picture. It’s not that I forget, it’s just that I… don’t remember 🙂 There is a difference. It’s mostly that when I get somewhere, I don’t remember to bring my book or I have a small purse that day (if I’m just going to the Farmers Market, why should I bring a huge purse?). Anyway, I’ll make up for it in August, I swear. Plus, you’ll get to see a bump in some pictures by that point 😉

June felt like it took 10,000 years to finish while July felt like I blinked once and it was over. That being said, I really did slam through some books this month! My lowest score was 3 stars (and really, 2 of those stars were for the ridiculous narration of a 1 star book – so it might be cheating). I read one of my favorite books of the year (Ghosts) and continued on with my goal of reading every single Stephen King book. Apart from reading, I got my 20 week anatomy scan done (baby looks perfect!), remembered how beautiful Pacifica is (planning a date day there soon!), put my chunkster of a dog on a diet (sorry Sidney), attended a 1 year old birthday party (literally the cutest little girl), took my best friend out to a fancy (and delicious) birthday dinner, went to a fun networking dinner in the city, and watched my mom’s tiny monster dog. It was a pretty full but relaxing month, which is nice. I’ve gotten a lot of energy back and my appetite is almost returned (somedays I want to eat everything and somedays I eat 2 bites and am full for the rest of the day – pregnancy is weird). July 2024 was pretty solid.

Ghosts by Dolly Alderton

My Rating: 5/5
What’s it about: The dating scene in your 30s in the modern world is a nightmare that doesn’t bother Nina until she gets ghosted by a seemingly “good guy”. The book shows the different relationships in your 30s, how your actions actually affect human beings, and how ghosting is a trash way to live.
Quote: “Time and time again I observed that most men think a good conversation is a conversation where they have imparted facts or information that others didn’t already know, or dispensed an interesting anecdote, or given someone tips or advice on an upcoming plan or generally left their mark on the discourse like a streak of piss against a tree trunk.”
My Review: There is so much I want to say about this book and just so little space. I could probably dedicate a month worth of postings to this book alone (not that I’ve been posting a lot anyway). I think that every man in his 20s needs to read this book. While it is fiction, it’s based on so much truth surrounding dating in modern times. Men think they need to tell us they want to marry us in order to even have a casual relationship with us. Then, when they want to ditch us, they call us crazy for ever thinking they were serious about all the ridiculous things they said to get in our pants. THEN, when we do finally meet a good guy who means what he says, it takes so much trust and time for us to realize that he really does mean it when he says he wants to marry us (I still make sure Jacob loves me and I’m literally carrying his child). In fact, I wrote about this whole idea in this post. Go give it a read. Seeing how the modern dating world is written out in this book is so sad.

Nina talks about the difference between the types of friends in your 30s: The ones that are still partying and doing coke every weekend and the ones that are growing their families. I am (happily) part of the second group but I can see how difficult it is to navigate the type of hangout sesh you’re about to have. Will you get so drunk you can’t remember where you live or will Little Suzy give you whatever cooties are going around daycare right now?

I pose this question to you: Was Nina a pick me girl? She is BEST FRIENDS with her ex of several years, which, no matter how you spin it, is fucking weird. And she’s part of his wedding party?? And she goes to the bachelorette party (which I agree sounds horrific – wtf is an underwear game?!) but makes no attempt to try and be friends with this woman or any of her friends. But also, who has 25+ close friends?! The whole bachelorette scene made me cringe the entire time. But not as cringy as Nina’s desperate texts to Max after being ghosted. It’s so hard to read but I’m so happy this was included in the book.

There was a quote that really got a hold of me: “He told me he wanted to marry me on our first date. Can you imagine what would have happened if a woman had said that on a first date? He would have alerted the authorities. Why does he get to say that? Why does he get to be the one in charge of saying ‘I love you’ first, then ghost me?”. DUDE. Yes. Who allowed men to have this power?? Who allowed them to say wild and crazy shit but it’s okay cause they’re dudes and they’re probably lying to get in your pants anyway so saying stupid shit like this is totes okay. I hate it here. She later says this quote (still about Max): “You were the one who made it intense. You were the one telling me you wanted to marry me. Or that you couldn’t stop thinking about me. You rang me twice a day. You insisted we spent every other night together. I just wanted to hang out and get to know each other. You decided the entire pace of this relationship then you slammed on the brakes when it suited you. It was like I was just a lucky passenger along for the ride.” Fuck I hate men.

I go back and forth on Katherine being a good friend or not. The best part about choosing to be a mom later in life is that I got all my partying out of the way. I look at my friends going to music festivals and staying out all night and I love that for them! I am not living vicariously through them because I’m building my own life the way I want it to be (and hopefully they are too!). Katherine seems to resent Nina for not getting married and having children. When things are falling apart for Katherine, she accuses Nina for being a bad friend because she’s “so dramatic” AFTER HAVING HER HEART BROKEN. It reminds me of being in high school when a girl I thought was my friend told people I always have “drama” going on because there was a really shitty, hard situation happening at home that I had no control over. It was tough to hear that my life was such an inconvenience to her (fyi: she’s no longer a friend and the people who were our mutual friends also don’t talk to her so it seems like she’s still not allowing anyone who is drama into her life – hope she’s happy). 

Anyway, read this book.

Raver Girl: coming of age in the 90s by Samantha Durbin

My Rating: 4/5 
What’s it about: Durbin recounts her wild teenage life of being a raver in the Bay Area during the 90s and how she was able to remove herself.
My Review: When I picked up this book, I knew it took place in the “Bay Area” but in media, that always means San Francisco, which obviously is the Bay Area but I’m an East Bay kid so it doesn’t quite feel like home. Durbin was raised in the East Bay and went to school at Bishop O’Dowd, which is one of the Catholic Schools I was considering when getting ready for high school (I ended up at a different one). She would name streets and buildings and I knew exactly where she was. Maybe I’m giving it such a high rating due to nostalgia but I genuinely did enjoy the story. At first, it reminded me of my teen life – Durbin also had an older sibling who were the first ones to introduce her to smoking pot and drinking (sorry mom). But that’s where the similarity ended. Whild Durbin’s brother(s) seem very much not in her life, my sister was. I think without her guidance and constant watch (which I found annoying but am now thankful for), I could have had a much more similar life to Durbin – including a lot of drugs, precarious situations, and chaos. I don’t know if I would have been able to pull myself out (I do know my parents would have whooped my ass out of it though). The book is very raw with typos and grammatical errors, but not enough to upset me. After Durbin starts getting into hard drugs, each rave does gets really repetitive and you’re left hoping that this is the last rave. While I understood, logically, that she clearly pulls herself out of it, I was still scared for her most of the time. Once she gets into crystal meth, I recognized a lot of the symptoms I’ve seen with people I know who’ve done meth. The paranoia is REAL.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Official Grimoire: A Magickal History of Sunnydale by A.M. Robinson

My Rating: 5/5 
What’s it about: This book is Willow’s Grimoire starting at the beginning of Season 3. It’s part journal and part every spell that occurs during the show from that point on with notes from Buffy, Xander, Giles, Dawn, Anya, and Spike.
My Review: This book is clearly a “if you’re a huge Buffy fan, you have to own this” memorabilia. I’m absolutely shocked that I’d never seen it before (this came out in 2017!!). The illustrations are great and reading Willow’s “thoughts” on spells is super fun. It’s something to add to your collection but not something I’d tell a non-Buffy freak to look at.

Bad Cree by Jessica Johns

My Rating: 4/5 
What’s it about: Mackenzie has been having dreams about a lost memory. The weirdest thing is that she’s able to bring things back… like a severed crow’s head. She finally returns to her family for help after the dreams start scaring her and everyone around her. 
My Review: This book is promoted as a horror novel, but I don’t really agree. Sure, there’s some creepy aspects (did you read the part about the severed crow’s head?) and there’s supernatural things going on, but I wouldn’t consider it horror. It’s very much about learning to listen to yourself, leaning on your family when you need it (that’s what they’re there for!), and how badass and strong females’ are (I think there’s like, 2 men in this entire novel and one doesn’t even speak). This book covers a lot about losing a loved one and how much pain and suffering occurs – one of Mackenzie’s sisters’ is dead before the book starts and the dreams revolve around her. It’s always hard when you forget someone is dead and have to suddenly remember… and that feeling never seems to go away. The book does start out pretty slow, but once it gets going, it’s like a wildfire. I could not put the book down!

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Butcher and Blackbird (The Ruinous Love Trilogy #1) by Brynne Weaver [audiobook]

My Rating: 3/5
What’s it about: Dexter Style murderers meet when trying to murder the same serial killer and start a yearly game of killing serial killers instead of admitting they’re in love.
My Review: I blame my best friend for this. But she did give me a disclaimer, which I’ll give to you. This is not a good book. However, the narration is stellar. If I had physically read this book, I probably would not have finished it or if I did, I would have given it a 1 star. The narration SAVED this book. Both the narrators (one for Sloane and one for Rowan) acted the shit out of their lines. 10/10 for narration. I couldn’t stop listening to it, no matter how bad the book was. If they could get these two to narrate every split POV romance book, I’d listen to every single one of them. 

Let’s talk about the story though… It’s not good. The spice is thrown in at the end (other than random comments/dreams/thoughts throughout the first 70% of the book) and it’s both rushed and extremely dragged out, all at the same time. The book also just, doesn’t make sense. These are basically two Dexters, out there killing serial killers. Which is great, we love a vigilante. But Dexter is methodical and ensures that he covers all of his tracks. These two are very willy nilly (a lot of people KNOW they’re both serial killers) and the story banks on the FBI being completely stupid AND on their circle not betraying them. I couldn’t suspend my disbelief enough because they’re so incredibly not careful. Plus his nickname is The Butcher of Boston so he literally names his restaurant in Boston… The Butcher. Okay sir. The twist wasn’t a twist, the writing was awful, it was all bad. BUT THE NARRATION. If you just want a short, entertaining book and you already listen to a ton of romance books, go for it.

Needful Things by Stephen King [audiobook]

My Rating: 4/5
What’s it about: Basically, a version of a chaos demon is terrorizing a small town by making them hate one another via random “artifacts” he sells. The price? Just a harmless little prank on your neighbor.
My Review: I don’t understand how this man has the imagination for so many different towns with all their different residences with completely different personalities and stories. While I do feel like he’s done the “weird town with weird residences” quite a bit (so far from what I’ve read: IT and Under the Dome), I feel like I haven’t heard the same backstory twice. I love his stories about “No, these are normal ass people doing terrible and horrible things” because it reminds me of the real world. While you usually have a catalyst for horrible things, such as murder, it’s a reminder that it’s not a demon or the devil. It’s a regular person. Every item in the shop is so detailed and well suited for each resident. My favorites, by far, are the Elvis artifacts because you really shouldn’t underestimate horny housewives who are not treated well by their husbands. This book has murder of people and 1 dog, suicide (including of a child), and a ton of violence. Absolutely recommend the audiobook because there’s random music at the end of each chapter and it’s both incredibly terrible and hilarious at the same time.

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This month really got me out of my reading funk, which was nice. All the books I read, I enjoyed in some capacity. Or maybe it was getting into my 2nd trimester that really got me out of this reading funk. What was your favorite book this month?