It’s time for my first half of August book review! I am sharing what I read in August so far, although I am skipping a few 5 star reads to share later in the month. 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: How To Kill Your Best Friend
Author: Lexie Elliot
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: Berkley, 8/17/21
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 4 Stars
How To Kill Your Best Friend was a bit of a slow burn thriller. It is told from the viewpoints of Bronwyn and Georgie as they mourn the loss of their best friend Lissa who was lost in dangerous water although a good swimmer. Soon things start to get weird.
“Georgie, Lissa, and Bronwyn have been inseparable since dominating their college swim team; swimming has always been an escape from their own problems, but now their shared passion has turned deadly. How can it be true that Lissa, the strongest swimmer they know, drowned? Granted, there is something strange about Kanu Cove, where Lissa was last seen, swimming off the coast of the fabulous island resort she owned with her husband. Lissa’s closest friends gather at the resort to honor her life, but Georgie and Bron can’t seem to stop looking over their shoulders. Danger lurks beneath the surface of the crystal-clear water, and even their luxurious private villas can’t help them feel safe. As the weather turns ominous, trapping the funeral guests together on the island, nobody knows who they can trust. Lissa’s death was only the beginning….”
I liked the setting of this book. I found the multiple viewpoints both told in 1st person to lead to some mix up of the characters in my head. Overall, it wasn’t a bad thriller.
Title: Summer Sisters
Author: Judy Blume
Genre: Contemporary (or Historical) Fiction
Publisher: Bantam, 5/27/03 (originally 1998)
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 3.5 Stars (Rounded up to 4)
Summer Sisters by Judy Blume was a book I swear I remember reading and loving when it first came out in 1998. With this new reading I didn’t remember a thing and also wasn’t sure what I’d remembered loving about it. Caitlyn and Vix have a life long friendship and this is their story over the years.
“In the summer of 1977, Victoria Leonard’s world changes forever when Caitlin Somers chooses her as a friend. Dazzling, reckless Caitlin welcomes Vix into the heart of her sprawling, eccentric family, opening doors to a world of unimaginable privilege, sweeping her away to vacations on Martha’s Vineyard, an enchanting place where the two friends become ‘summer sisters.’ Now, years later, Vix is working in New York City. Caitlin is getting married on the Vineyard. And the early magic of their long, complicated friendship has faded. But Caitlin begs Vix to come to her wedding, to be her maid of honor. And Vix knows that she will go—because she wants to understand what happened during that last shattering summer. And, after all these years, she needs to know why her best friend—her summer sister—still has the power to break her heart.”
This was still readable for me, although I remember not being able to put it down, and it didn’t have that same pull as a reread. I can see why this is a popular summer read even so many years later!
Title: I Rise
Author: Marie Arnold
Genre: YA Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: Versify, 8/2/22
Source: Storygram Book Tours
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 4 Stars
This book gives a powerful look at the fatigue that comes with being an activist from the perspective of a young teen.
“Ayo’s mother founded the biggest civil rights movement to hit New York City in decades. It’s called ‘See Us’ and it tackles police brutality and racial profiling in Harlem. Ayo has spent her entire life being an activist and now, she wants out. She wants to get her first real kiss, have a boyfriend, and just be a normal teen. When her mom is put into a coma after a riot breaks out between protesters and police, protestors want Ayo to become the face of See Us and fight for justice for her mother who can no longer fight for herself. While she deals with her grief and anger, Ayo must also discover if she has the strength to take over where her mother left off.”
This book contains a scavenger hunt, a strong friend group, a situation with Ayo’s friend’s mother’s boyfriend, racism and microaggressions in school and out, and poetic language. It definitely was a window for me.
Title: With Neighbors Like This
Author: Tracy Goodwin
Genre: Rom Com
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca, 8/2/22
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 3.5 Stars (Rounded up to 4)
This is the story of Amelia, who moves with her two children into a neighborhood whose HOA has forbidden her from keeping her kids’ gnome on their front lawn. She meets Kyle, who happens to be the HOA board president.
“Amelia Marsh relocates with her two young kids to a northern suburb of Houston after a brutal divorce. All she wants is a bit of normalcy for her children. The last thing she needs is to be the center of a disagreement with the HOA representative. Believe it or not, her children’s garden gnome is accused of violating the association’s rules. No way is Amelia backing down on this one. Gnomegate? Really? HOA President Kyle Sanders would be a good friend―or even something more―if Amelia wasn’t gearing up for battle with the HOA in her determination to make her house a home and her neighborhood a community…”
The romance is a very slow burn, as Amelia puts her kids first, as she should. Their father has checked out, and while Kyle is good with them, they needed their mom’s attention. The story itself was cute, but the writing could have used some help and I found the dialogue a bit awkward.
Title: One Hundred Saturdays
Author: Michael Frank
Genre: Non Fiction / Biography
Publisher: Avid Reader Press, 9/6/22
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 4 Stars
This book tells the story of Stella Levi, who grew up on the island of Rhodes in the tight knit Jewish community here prior to World War II. This community was the one that had the longest – in both time and distance – deportation to Auschwitz.
“With nearly a century of life behind her, Stella Levi had never before spoken in detail about her past. Then she met Michael Frank. He came to her Greenwich Village apartment one Saturday afternoon to ask her a question about the Juderia, the neighborhood in Rhodes where she’d grown up in a Jewish community that had thrived there for half a millennium. Neither of them could know this was the first of one hundred Saturdays over the course of six years that they would spend in each other’s company. During these meetings Stella traveled back in time to conjure what it felt like to come of age on this luminous, legendary island in the eastern Aegean, which the Italians conquered in 1912, began governing as an official colonial possession in 1923, and continued to administer even after the Germans seized control in September 1943. The following July, the Germans rounded up all 1,700-plus residents of the Juderia and sent them first by boat and then by train to Auschwitz on what was the longest journey—measured by both time and distance—of any of the deportations. Ninety percent of them were murdered upon arrival.”
Stella tells the story of her family and friends and sheds light on a little known Jewish community from the past. I liked this quote: “I ask myself why, but there is no answer. You do not find a reason. You tell the story, as I have done to you. It’s all that you can do.”
Title: The Last Resort
Author: Sarah Stodola
Genre: Non Fiction
Publisher: Harper Audio, 6/28/22
Source: Library Audio App
Why I Read It: Sounded interesting
My Rating: 4 Stars
I heard about this book on a podcast and thought it sounded very interesting so I added it to my library hold list. This was a look at beach culture, history, issues, and the future of beach tourism told by a travel journalist.
“With its promise of escape from the strains of everyday life, the beach has a hold on the popular imagination as the ultimate paradise. In The Last Resort, Sarah Stodola dives into the psyche of the beachgoer and gets to the heart of what drives humans to seek out the sand. At the same time, she grapples with the darker realities of resort culture: strangleholds on local economies, reckless construction, erosion of beaches, weighty carbon footprints, and the inevitable overdevelopment and decline that comes with a soaring demand for popular shorelines. The Last Resort weaves Stodola’s firsthand travel notes with her exacting journalism in an enthralling report on the past, present, and future of coastal travel. She takes us from Monte Carlo, where the pursuit of pleasure first became part of the beach resort experience, to a village in Fiji that was changed irrevocably by the opening of a single resort; from the overdevelopment that stripped Acapulco of its reputation for exclusivity to Miami Beach, where extreme measures are underway to prevent the barrier island from vanishing into the ocean. In the twenty-first century, beach travel has become central to our globalized world—its culture, economy, and interconnectedness. But with sea levels likely to rise at least 1.5 to 3 feet by the end of this century, beaches will become increasingly difficult to preserve, and many will disappear altogether. What will our last resort be when water begins to fill the lobbies?”
It was interesting to hear about beaches I am familiar with as well as those I had never heard of. Some of the audio became a little boring, but overall I did find the book interesting and enlightening, especially with regards to climate change and how beaches may disappear in the future.
Title: Upgrade
Author: Blake Crouch
Genre: Sci Fi / Thriller
Publisher: Ballantine, 7/12/22
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 3 Stars
While I heard some very good reviews of this book, I found it quite boring. When Logan’s genome is upgraded and he finds himself with super human abilities, he has to decide whether it would benefit the world to upgrade all humans in the same way.
“At first, Logan Ramsay isn’t sure if anything’s different. He just feels a little . . . sharper. Better able to concentrate. Better at multitasking. Reading a bit faster, memorizing better, needing less sleep. But before long, he can’t deny it: Something’s happening to his brain. To his body. He’s starting to see the world, and those around him—even those he loves most—in whole new ways. The truth is, Logan’s genome has been hacked. And there’s a reason he’s been targeted for this upgrade. A reason that goes back decades to the darkest part of his past, and a horrific family legacy. Worse still, what’s happening to him is just the first step in a much larger plan, one that will inflict the same changes on humanity at large—at a terrifying cost. Because of his new abilities, Logan’s the one person in the world capable of stopping what’s been set in motion. But to have a chance at winning this war, he’ll have to become something other than himself. Maybe even something other than human. And even as he’s fighting, he can’t help wondering: what if humanity’s only hope for a future really does lie in engineering our own evolution?”
I guess the question that Logan asks himself about the future of humanity could be interesting, but the book read like an action film for me and didn’t get much into his actual emotions. I did find some of the dystopian references to be interesting, but they weren’t enough to turn this into a book that I enjoyed.
Title: Lucy Checks In
Author: Dee Ernst
Genre: Rom Com
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin, 8/16/22
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 3.5 Stars (Rounded up to 4)
Lucy is an older character at 49. She moves to France to manage a hotel and finds a group of personalities that live at the hotel. Together, they work to open a hotel worth a visit.
“Lucia Giannetti needs a fresh start. Once the hotel manager of a glamorous NYC hotel and intimately involved with the hotel’s owner, Lucy had her entire future planned out. But when the owner disappears, taking millions of dollars with him, Lucy’s life as she knows it falls apart. Two years later, forty-nine years old and unemployed, Lucy takes a job in Rennes, France to manage the Hotel Paradis. She pictures fur quilts and extravagant chandeliers, but what she finds is wildly different. Lucy is now in charge of turning the run-down, but charming hotel into a bustling tourist attraction. Between painting rooms, building a website, and getting to know Bing, the irritatingly attractive artist, Lucy finds an unexpected home. But can she succeed in bringing the Hotel Paradis to its former glory?”
The romance between Lucy and Bing was slow burn and the pacing of the book wasn’t great, as a long time was spent on the hotel renovations and a shorter time was spent on Lucy’s future and life in France. I liked how the book ended, but I thought it could have been better written overall.
There you have it – 8 of the books I read this month. Of these books, 7 were print and 2 was audio. 7 were adult books and 1 was YA. Genres included thriller, rom com, contemporary, and nonfiction.
Have you read any of these books or do you want to? What have you been reading lately?
