It’s time for my first half of July book review! I am sharing what I read in July so far, although I am skipping a few 5 star reads to share later in the month. I started out the month with a thriller binge, so I have a bunch to share here! The Amazon links to the books I’ve read are affiliate links and if you use them and make a purchase, I may receive a small commission. If you’ve read any of these books or are interested in them, I’d love to hear about it in the comments!
Title: I’ll Be You
Author: Janelle Brown
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: Random House, 4/26/22
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 4 Stars
I’ll Be You is about twins Elli and Sam. They were former child actors and when Elli did not love acting and wanted to quit, Sam became Elli and covered for her. Sam is now a recovering addict and Elli disappears, leaving her daughter with their parents, who ask Sam for her help.
“As children, Sam and Elli were two halves of a perfect whole: gorgeous identical twins whose parents sometimes couldn’t even tell them apart. They fell asleep to the sound of each other’s breath at night, holding hands in the dark. And once Hollywood discovered them, they became B-list child TV stars, often inhabiting the same role. But as adults, their lives have splintered. After leaving acting, Elli reinvented herself as the perfect homemaker: married to a real estate lawyer, living in a house just blocks from the beach. Meanwhile, Sam has never recovered from her failed Hollywood career, or from her addiction to the pills and booze that have propped her up for the last fifteen years. Sam hasn’t spoken to her sister since her destructive behavior finally drove a wedge between them. So when her father calls out of the blue, Sam is shocked to learn that Elli’s life has been in turmoil: her husband moved out, and Elli just adopted a two-year-old girl. Now she’s stopped answering her phone and checked in to a mysterious spa in Ojai. Is her sister just decompressing, or is she in trouble? Could she have possibly joined a cult? As Sam works to connect the dots left by Elli’s baffling disappearance, she realizes that the bond between her and her sister is more complicated than she ever knew.”
There were some twists in the book but Elli’s whereabouts weren’t a surprise. Some of the middle of the story was a bit slower than what I prefer. I liked the sister aspect of this one!
Title: Everything We Didn’t Say
Author: Nicole Baart
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: Atria, 11/2/21
Source: Book of the Month
Why I Read It: Catching up on BOTM picks
My Rating: 4 Stars
I wasn’t sure if this one would be a hit for me due to mixed reviews, but it kept me turning pages. Juniper comes back to town years after her neighbors had been killed and her brother had been suspected of the crime.
“Juniper Baker had just graduated from high school and was deep in the throes of a summer romance when Cal and Beth Murphy, a childless couple who lived on a neighboring farm, were brutally murdered. When her younger brother became the prime suspect, June’s world collapsed and everything she loved that summer fell away. She left, promising never to return to tiny Jericho, Iowa. Until now. Officially, she’s back in town to help an ill friend manage the local library. But really, she’s returned to repair her relationship with her teenage daughter, who’s been raised by Juniper’s mother and stepfather since birth—and to solve the infamous Murphy murders once and for all. She knows the key to both lies in the darkest secret of that long-ago summer night, one that’s haunted her for nearly fifteen years. As history begins to repeat itself and a dogged local true crime podcaster starts delving into the murders, the race to the truth puts past and present on a dangerous collision course. Juniper lands back in an all-too-familiar place with the answers to everything finally in her sights, but this time it’s her daughter’s life that hangs in the balance. Will revealing what really happened mean a fresh start? Or will the truth destroy everything Juniper loves for a second time?”
I was able to guess who the killer was but I still mostly enjoyed this book. One strange choice was that the sections about the past were written in present tense while the ones taking place in the present were written in past tense. That was a little confusing to get used to!
Title: You Made A Fool of Death With Your Beauty
Author: Akwaeke Emezi
Genre: Romance
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Audio, 5/24/22
Source: Publisher Audio
Why I Read It: Heard It Was Good
My Rating: 3 Stars
While I was reading thrillers in print, I was listening to other genres, hence this romance, which had been raved about by various book reviewers. However, I didn’t find that I enjoyed it very much.
“Feyi Adekola wants to learn how to be alive again. It’s been five years since the accident that killed the love of her life and she’s almost a new person now—an artist with her own studio and sharing a brownstone apartment with her ride-or-die best friend, Joy, who insists it’s time for Feyi to ease back into the dating scene. Feyi isn’t ready for anything serious, but a steamy encounter at a rooftop party cascades into a whirlwind summer she could have never imagined: a luxury trip to a tropical island, decadent meals in the glamorous home of a celebrity chef, and a major curator who wants to launch her art career. She’s even started dating the perfect guy, but their new relationship might be sabotaged before it has a chance by the overwhelming desire Feyi feels every time she locks eyes with the one person in the house who is most definitely off-limits—his father. This new life she asked for just got a lot more complicated, and Feyi must begin her search for real answers. Who is she ready to become? Can she release her past and honor her grief while still embracing her future? And, of course, there’s the biggest question of all—how far is she willing to go for a second chance at love?”
This may be a spoiler, but Feyi goes to an island with Nasir and ends up falling in insta-love with his father. Both of them are dealing with losses and they bond over that. The writing in this book is good, but I just didn’t love the story.
Title: The Children on the Hill
Author: Jennifer McMahon
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: Gallery / Scout Press, 5/24/22
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 4 Stars
This was suspenseful and almost like a horror read, though it didn’t scare me! It is about Dr. Hildreth, who runs a psychiatric treatment home and is Gran to Vi and Eric. One day, she brings home Iris to join their family. In the present, Lizzy is a podcaster who seeks out the monsters of legends in towns around the country and discovers that girls who claim to have met these monsters have been going missing.
“1978: At her renowned treatment center in picturesque Vermont, the brilliant psychiatrist, Dr. Helen Hildreth, is acclaimed for her compassionate work with the mentally ill. But when she’s home with her cherished grandchildren, Vi and Eric, she’s just Gran—teaching them how to take care of their pets, preparing them home-cooked meals, providing them with care and attention and love. Then one day Gran brings home a child to stay with the family. Iris—silent, hollow-eyed, skittish, and feral—does not behave like a normal girl. Still, Violet is thrilled to have a new playmate. She and Eric invite Iris to join their Monster Club, where they catalogue all kinds of monsters and dream up ways to defeat them. Before long, Iris begins to come out of her shell. She and Vi and Eric do everything together: ride their bicycles, go to the drive-in, meet at their clubhouse in secret to hunt monsters. Because, as Vi explains, monsters are everywhere. 2019: Lizzy Shelley, the host of the popular podcast Monsters Among Us, is traveling to Vermont, where a young girl has been abducted, and a monster sighting has the town in an uproar. She’s determined to hunt it down, because Lizzy knows better than anyone that monsters are real—and one of them is her very own sister.”
There was a twist that I didn’t see coming and I liked the way the book ended in a different way than expected. Overall this was a good thriller that I enjoyed.
Title: The Second Husband
Author: Kate White
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks, 6/28/22
Source: PR for author
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 3.5 Stars (Rounded down to 3)
I enjoyed Kate White’s book The Fiancé last summer so I was excited about this one as well. This is about Emma, whose first husband Derrick was killed. The investigation is reopened and it seems like Emma’s new husband Tom is suspicious because of the timing of when he met Emma.
“After losing her husband, Derrick, in what appears to have been a random street crime, thirtysomething Emma has built a new life with widower Tom, who is kind, handsome, driven, and successful. Emma is finally able to feel safe again, both in her relationship with Tom and in the home they’ve made together on the Connecticut shore. Then one day a homicide detective shows up at Emma and Tom’s door asking questions. Though Emma had been cleared of her husband’s murder, it appears that law enforcement is taking another look at her and the case. What do they know? Are they on the right track this time? And most importantly, will the renewed investigation ruin Emma’s chances of a happy life?”
Emma has secrets and there were a lot of mini mysteries within the bigger one of who killed Derrick. I found the dialogue to be somewhat awkward in parts. It did keep me turning pages though!
Title: Things We Do In The Dark
Author: Jennifer Hillier
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: Minotaur Books, 7/19/22
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 4 Stars
When Paris finds her husband dead in their bathtub, she is immediately a suspect. However, she and her husband’s closest friend determine it was actually suicide. Meanwhile, the narrative switches to Drew, who is doing a story on the mother who abused his friend Joey, before she died in a house fire.
“When Paris Peralta is arrested in her own bathroom―covered in blood, holding a straight razor, her celebrity husband dead in the bathtub behind her―she knows she’ll be charged with murder. But as bad as this looks, it’s not what worries her the most. With the unwanted media attention now surrounding her, it’s only a matter of time before someone from her long hidden past recognizes her and destroys the new life she’s worked so hard to build, along with any chance of a future. Twenty-five years earlier, Ruby Reyes, known as the Ice Queen, was convicted of a similar murder in a trial that riveted Canada in the early nineties. Reyes knows who Paris really is, and when she’s unexpectedly released from prison, she threatens to expose all of Paris’s secrets. Left with no other choice, Paris must finally confront the dark past she escaped, once and for all. Because the only thing worse than a murder charge are two murder charges.”
It was pretty obvious to me how the two story lines connected and I also guessed one of the other surprises, but not a third one. This book contains a lot of disturbing elements including child abuse, sexual assault, murder, etc. I thought it was somewhat predictable, but I liked the book overall.
Title: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Author: Gabrielle Zevin
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio, 7/5/22
Source: libro.fm
Why I Read It: Heard it was amazing
My Rating: 4 Stars
This is a story about a lifelong friendship between Sadie and Sam. Their lives are full of ups and downs and they bond over playing video games and creating their own video games. The story is told creatively as it takes us from the 90s and Oregon Trail through the present and the games that Sam and Sadie create, along with Marx, the third of their trio.
“On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won’t protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts. Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.”
The characters in this book are Jewish or part Jewish and Asian, as is the author. There are upsetting pieces and beautiful pieces in this book and it includes gun violence, suicide, racism, etc. I am still thinking about this book and the only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is the literary writing style, which I think would have been hard to follow had I read it in print.
Title: Cover Story
Author: Susan Rigetti
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: William Morrow, 4/5/22
Source: Library
Why I Read It: Heard it was good
My Rating: 4 Stars
I was supposed to receive this book from the publisher but it never arrived, so I added it to my library list and finally got it in to read. It is told in diary entries, emails, etc. and is about Lora, a student at NYU who scores an internship at Elle, and Cat, a grifter who takes Lora under her wing.
“After a rough year at NYU, aspiring writer Lora Ricci is thrilled to land a summer internship atELLE magazine where she meets Cat Wolff, contributing editor and enigmatic daughter of a clean-energy mogul. Cat takes Lora under her wing, soliciting her help with side projects and encouraging her writing. As a friendship emerges between the two women, Lora opens up to Cat about her financial struggles and lost scholarship. Cat’s solution: Drop out of NYU and become her ghostwriter. Lora agrees and, when the internship ends, she moves into Cat’s suite at the opulent Plaza Hotel. Writing during the day and accompanying Cat to extravagant parties at night, Lora’s life quickly shifts from looming nightmare to dream-come-true. But as Lora is drawn into Cat’s glamorous lifestyle, Cat’s perfect exterior cracks, exposing an illicit, shady world.”
I can’t say much about this book without giving things away! I will say that I thought I knew what was happening but I second guessed myself and was still surprised at the end!
Title: The Codebreaker’s Secret
Author: Sara Ackerman
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Mira, 8/2/22
Source: TLC Book Tours
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 4 Stars
This historical fiction novel takes place over two timelines – one in 1943 when Isabel works as a codebreaker and becomes close with her brother’s best friend Matteo, who is in the army, and the other in 1965 when Matteo and a young Hawaiian girl named Lu or attending the opening of the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel. When a high profile guest goes missing, the two story lines begin to tie together.
“1943. As war in the Pacific rages on, Isabel Cooper and her codebreaker colleagues huddle in “the dungeon” at Station HYPO in Pearl Harbor, deciphering secrets plucked from the airwaves in a race to bring down the enemy. Isabel has only one wish: to avenge her brother’s death. But she soon finds life has other plans when she meets his best friend, a hotshot pilot with secrets of his own. 1965. Fledgling journalist Lu Freitas comes home to Hawai’i to cover the grand opening of the glamorous Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, Rockefeller’s newest and grandest project. When a high-profile guest goes missing, Lu forms an unlikely alliance with an intimidating veteran photographer to unravel the mystery. The two make a shocking discovery that stirs up memories and uncovers an explosive secret from the war days. A secret that only a codebreaker can crack.”
I enjoyed the mystery aspect of the story and the Hawaiian setting! There were some surprises along the way and I had a good time getting to know these characters and the time that they lived in.
There you have it – 9 of the books I read this month. Of these books, 7 were print and 2 were audio. All 9 were adult books. Genres included thriller, romance, literary, and historical fiction.
Have you read any of these books or do you want to? What have you been reading lately?
