Divine Rivals

REBECCA ROSS

This one I technically read the last couple days of July, but since I haven’t actually finished August yet, we’ll call it even. I absolutely loved this book. It felt like Shadow and Bone meets You’ve Got Mail. Very sweet romance, interesting world with some magical elements, and it has a cliffhanger that leaves you looking forward to book two. I’ve already preordered book two, which I believe comes out Dec 26th. Looking forward to my Christmas break read already!

The Hunger Games + The Ballad of Songbirds And Snakes

SUZANNE COLLINS

I bought the original three Hunger Games Novels earlier this summer because I saw them at the thrift store and picked them up, realizing I’d never read them. They came out when I was in college, and I wasn’t really in the YA novel reading mindset at the time, so they weren’t on my radar. I’ve seen the movies, but it’s been a while. I was sitting in the theater watching Barbie previews when I saw the preview for the new Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and it reminded me that I hadn’t read The Hunger Games trilogy yet. So I went home and did just that.

I think I read all three books in 3 or 4 days. They were great, but they also had a melancholy tone throughout in a way that kind of left me haunted. Part of me wishes Collins would’ve just given us a happy ending, but I think that what she did was honor the reality of the characters, in both the ending and throughout the book. Katniss isn’t a goddess, and there’s a lot of doing what has to be done. I don’t know if it’s because of Collins’ background writing for shows or because I’d seen some of the movies, but the books read very movie-like, in a way, if that makes any sense.

I read The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes after I finished the original trilogy. This one is an interesting one because we follow the story of the main villain from the trilogy. So the main character is someone you are wanting to root for, but ultimately you know how awful they are. So it’s a weird cognitive dissonance as a reader. Collins does it really well, but again, I feel like the ending was just a little bitter, and it left some questions hanging in the air, which added to the unsettling feeling. This sounds like a negative review, and it’s not. It has very much the tone of the original trilogy, so if you liked those, you will most likely like this prequel as well!

Seven Days in June

TIA WILLIAMS

I don’t read a ton of fiction set in modern times, with the exception of crime, so this was a very different book from my usual fiction reads. The only reason I picked it up is because I saw it in our Little Free Library and I had just finished another book so I was on the prowl for a new book. I liked the cover and the blurb, plus it’s a NYT Bestseller so I figured why not. I loved it. I had a really lovely pacing, the ending felt super satisfying and the characters were really likable and easy to root for, which felt really nice because I had just finished The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, and the main character in that is technically a villain and the ending felt sad and unsettling, so this was a nice counter point to that. I think I read it in two or three days. Blew through it! It had some sizzling spice, interesting characters, and just felt like an upbeat, enjoyable read.

Maidens of the Cave

LLOYD DEVEREAUX RICHARDS

Richards’ first book, Stone Maidens, was one that went viral on TikTok early this year after his daughter made a video talking about how he wrote a book and it hadn’t sold much in the 10 years since it was published. Cut to- TikTok doing its thing and turning it into an overnight bestseller. I didn’t realize he was coming out with another book (my guess: his publisher saw how crazy viral his book went and hopped on that to get him to quickly put out a second novel), but I saw it pop up in my Audible suggested reads and I preordered it.

This book follows the same forensic anthropologist as the first book. The vibe of both books is like if Bones and a BBC Detective show had a baby. And it was a book. I really enjoyed both of his books. Great pacing, good mystery, and we love a forensics moment over here.

Bird by Bird

ANNE LAMOTT

I’m going to a writing retreat in September where Anne Lamott is going to be a speaker, so I figured I should read some Anne Lamott before I go. This is a book about writing, or rather being a writer. I believe it came out in the mid 90’s, and you can definitely feel that in some of the stories she tells (some fatphobia and things that I forgot people used to have super deeply internalized that it showed up in their writing). I enjoyed it though. I haven’t really read any books about writing or being a writer, so it was my first foray into that realm. Mostly I feel encouraged to push through my “shitty first draft.”

After That Night

KARIN SLAUGHTER

I think I was afraid that I’d over inflated how good Karin Slaughter’s books are, because the last book in this series came out in 2020 (I think?). So it’s been 3 years since I read anything from her. I loved both the Grant County series (though I skipped the last one in that series because I disliked the character it focused on and she killed off one of my favorite characters, so I just said NOPE! and moved on lol), and the Will Trent series (which this book is a part of). Her pacing is just spot on. It moves quickly, but not too quickly. You get answers to questions at a rate that keeps you wanting more, but feeling satisfied along the way. And I was blown away by the attention to detail she included in this one. I knew she did her research because I’ve read so many of her other books, but she included a lot of medical details in this book that were things I’m pretty intimately familiar with because of my brother’s cardiac history, and girl did her research. And not just down to the procedure descriptions, but the descriptions of what it feels like to be a pediatric cardiologist. Like, remember my Drywall DNF woes? This is exactly the opposite of that.

I will say that this book deals heavily (very heavily) in rape and assault, so if those things are triggering, you might not want to read this (though she’s had quite a bit of content on that topic in her past books. None quite as pervasively and vividly as this one, if I remember the past books correctly, which I may not because it’s been years since I started her books). I always appreciate the perspective she brings in her books to sexual assault/sexism, though, and I don’t feel like she puts in gratuitous depictions of assault just for shock factor. That being said, I am not a survivor of SA, so I can’t really speak to how it would make me feel to read if I was.