August really does slip away like a bottle of wine. I feel like I blinked and it was gone but that might be because I was crazy busy for the entire month. The 2nd Trimester hasn’t been as tiring as the 1st Trimester, for me but this month really tested that. I took a lot of weekend naps. I had to stop listening to audiobooks as much because my commute shifted (I don’t want to talk about that) and I’m not stuck in more traffic than ever before and it causes me to start drifting off at the wheel (hahaha is H.R. reading this?). Not that these audiobooks were any good anyway. What was keeping me awake was the podcast Two Hot Takes that I often saw on TikTok but never listened to. 10/10. The “what the fuck did they just say?” really kept me awake.
Besides almost but not falling asleep at the wheel, I spent so much time with loved ones. I met up with a high school friend for dinner (she’s pregnant with her 2nd child!) and then met up with a high school friend of my husbands for dinner (she’s pregnant too!). I got to see my family quite a bit and my bump has definitely moved out of the “is she bloated?” phase. Baby girl is here for everyone to see! She also seems to be a night owl which is a real problem for this early bird so we’ll see how that goes.
Despite going to a million places this month, I consistently forgot to bring a book with me so I only have one photo of me reading a book. I made a point for this one because it might be the last time I’ll be at the Oakland Coliseum for an A’s game. I grew up going to those baseball games my entire life and to know that this is the last season they’ll be playing here is such a downer. I’m so sad that my daughter won’t be able to go to the games just like I did.
I’m behind on my reading challenge but the physical books I read were fantastic. The audiobooks were crap. You can’t win them all.
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
My Rating: 5/5
What’s it about: Eleanor lives her life by a carefully planned playbook she’s created. Each day is exactly as it should be, she never takes time off of work, she doesn’t have any friends, she talks to her mom once a week, and she spends every weekend completely plastered in her apartment, simply waiting for Monday so she can go back to work and “do something”. That is, until someone at work befriends her and they witness an elderly man get hurt and go to the hospital. Now she has people in her life who care about her… Which is not in her playbook.
My Review: I’ll be honest, I almost passed on this book when it was given to me. It didn’t sound interesting to me but when I looked it up on GoodReads, it was the highest rated book I owned and several of my friends gave it 4 or 5 stars so I gave it a shot. And I cannot believe I almost passed on one of the best books I read this year.
This book is phenomenal. The writing is fantastic, it’s a very unique storyline, and the main characters’ mind is a wild, crazy, beautiful ride. I felt so many emotions while reading this book, but the main one (especially as a pregnant woman) was pure rage at Eleanor’s mother. I cannot comprehend bringing a child into the world and then just treating them like they are a complete waste of space. While Eleanor’s behavior is… completely unhinged, you can see where it comes from and why she is the way that she is. And it shows how much simply being kind to a person can change everything.
At one point, Eleanor and Raymond argue about being on time for a party. I am an early bird. I will sit in my car and wait (unless it’s a party my mom or best friend is throwing) until 5 minutes after the time it starts. Raymond argues that this is so inconsiderate because the host won’t be ready… If you are not ready for a party at 4 that you said would start at 4 then there are other issues. I’d much rather someone show at 4 than all the people who show at 9 when everyone is leaving and I’m ready to clean up and go to sleep.
Ugh. Just read this book.
Bride by Ali Hazelwood
My Rating: 4/5
What’s it about: Vampires, werewolves, humans trying to live in a world together except everyone hates everyone else and wow politics does transend into fantasy (but like, it’s a good book I’m describing it wrong)
My Review: I read The Love Hypothesis and didn’t love it. It was fine but I didn’t care about reading another Ali Hazelwood book. But then everyone told me I had to read this one. Plus, vampires and werewolves? How could I not. I picked this up because I had forgotten to bring a book when I took Jacob to have an MRI (he’s fine) so I figured I’d snag one quickly and this was there. I’ve been failing to bring a book out and about with me lately and I need to get better at it. I was reading a book that was boring me to death (I had 5 separate reading sessions that equalled up to 3 hours and I hadn’t even gotten to page 60) so maybe that was the reason I “forgot” my book at home.
All in all, this book was great. It was pretty major cringe at parts (I get the ditzy, naive female character trope but Misery – yeah that’s her real name – got on my nerves with her constant “oh he totally thinks I’m super stinky cause whenever he smells me he closes his eyes and takes a really deep breath and then leaves the room”) and the spicy scenes got to be too much. That all being said, I really enjoyed the plot and the world building. The plot was deep and I don’t feel like there were a lot of plot holes. A lot of fantasy writers will sew crazy long plots (we go back to Misery’s childhood) and then forget where they started. The author had her ducks in a row and was ready to make sure that everything made sense. Hazelwood really should stick to fantasy novels!
The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix [audiobook]
My Rating: 2/5
What’s it about: A VAMPIRE. Not multiple vampires. Just one. Honestly, don’t read this book.
My Review: Oh. Boy. I have PARAGRAPHS about how much I disliked this book. This is the 3rd Grady Hendrix book I’ve read and the other two were 3 stars, at best. They always have so much potential but end up falling so flat. I’m definitely done after this. I almost gave up around the 30% mark but pushed on because I didn’t have anything else ready to listen to. I should have given up.
This book is so sexist and racist. I GET IT. So many reviews urge you to remember that this is the 80s/90s in the American South – a place were sexism and racism were still running rampant and “normal”. There’s a way to show that a place was sexist and/or racist without being sexist and/or racist. Maybe Patricia gives us a little wink after she tells her husband, “Yes dear! You’re always 100% correct about everything because you’re a man!” Like we’re both in on some kind of joke. I longingly stared at my English Degree on my wall while reading the reviews saying that this was all a ~metaphor~ and we’re just not smart enough to understand (P.S. if your main defense on liking something someone else doesn’t like is “well, I guess you’re not intelligent enough to understand it”, please staple your mouth shut). The sexism is up front and personal, since we’re mostly in Patricia’s POV so we’re seeing how horribly she’s treated. When she sees one of the children being fed on, her brain can’t compute so she thinks the child was being molested. If I told my husband I saw a child being molested, he’d believe me, immediately. No question. Despite Patricia not having a history of being a liar, she’s treated as one by her husband cause the vampire in question denied it and he’s a man so obviously the man knows best. How does all this “vampire” business start? Well, a vampire is killing black children – only Black children – and even though it’s very clearly not suicide, it’s being ruled AS suicide (these kids are 8 or 9 years old) because not one cares what happens to Black children. Nothing starts getting done until the white children are affected. Again, I get it. It’s “the time period” and maybe I simply should stop reading things that go on during such a racist time period but the way it’s written about it done so poorly. Patricia and her friends get to be White Saviors for the Black neighborhood with Mrs. Greene being a sidekick (cause, ya know, she’s Black). Hendrix throws out some lines he thinks are satire to let us know he’s “in” on the “joke” but they fall flat. Then I remember that this is a white dude who’s writing about the woes of being a mistreated housewife or being a part of the Black community. He writes from the female perspective quite often and he’s not good at it.
I’m going to sandwich the sexual abuse in here, because it’s a lot. So we find out that the vampire is a grown man (I think he’s meant to be in his 30s but obviously is hundreds of years old — then again the lore of vampirism in this book is WACKY). This grown man only preys on children. Yucky. But you know what’s more yucky? That instead of doing the regular vampire thing (sucking from the neck or maybe wrist), this guy has to suck on a vein between you thighs. There’s a scene where he’s butt ass naked with a 14 year old girl (who is also naked) while sucking on her inner thigh (oh also, the feeding makes you feel like you’re having an orgasm – ew). At that point, I did fast forward because I was so grossed out about the very descriptive scene of a 14 year old being sexually abused. Then, at around 80% of the book (why I kept listening, I’ll never know), the vampire actually r*pes a woman as retaliation cause she tried to blackmail him. It felt so incredibly unneeded. I’d ask why he didn’t just feed off her instead but it’s because she’s in her 30s and therefore like 15 years too old for him so.
Welp, now I’m grossed out so I’ll end with saying the tone was all over the place as well. It was ~satire~ but ~horror~. Hendrix would try to jump from these silly willy little housewives with how silly they are with their big “thoughts” like grown men to a literal r*pe without any warning. I originally gave it an extra star because of the POTENTIAL. I really wish someone with skill would take Hendrix’s books and re-write them but do it well.
Fall of Ruin and Wrath by Jennifer L. Armentrout [audiobook]
My Rating: 2/5
What’s it about: I don’t know. Bad world building and awkward sexual encounters?
My Review: First off, the narration is terrible. Secondly, this book is like, BORDERLINE r*pey. Your POV is Calista so we know that she super duper wants the prince but “the lady doth protest too much” and constantly shows him that she wants nothing to do with him. It’s crossed the line of “Enemy to Lovers” and is fully into “this seems non-consensual”. If we weren’t in Calista’s head, we’d immediately charge this man with sexual assault because despite her constant no’s (including physically stopping him), he still charges on because he just “knows” she wants it… which we also know. Cause she does. And admits to it inside her own damn head. That’s one of the bigger sticking points for me, beyond the fact that this dragggggs. It’s so slow (despite listening at 1.25x speed – which I normally listen to audiobooks at cause wow do people talk real slow). I feel like 90% of the book is Calista pushing the prince away but then they do something real sexual anyway. And backstory I don’t care about. I am a big fan of Armentrout (love the Blood & Ash series as well as the Onyx series) so I’m really bummed this fell so flat for me.
This month was pretty 50/50 on books but at least I was able to get through some of my list! The BER months are coming up and I’m almost at the point of “nesting” so we’ll see how much more of my list I can get through! What was the best book you read in August?
Writes with Wolves 