june

BOOKENDS: What I Read in June 2023

- Meg

June was a romance-heavy month for me! It wasn’t until I got everything entered into Goodreads that I noticed three (and a half) of the books I read featured a romance plotline, but June was also a weird month and I didn’t feel like I could focus on too many heavy reads in a row. Not the Kind of Earl You Marry and The Heiress Gets a Duke were my favorites of the romances I read, and The Perks of Loving a Wallflower was good but felt a little flat at times. The romance hints in Of Manners and Murder definitely had a hint of what is to come with the series, and I may borrow the second book from the library once it comes out even though I found the first to be a bit slow in the first half. Thornhedge is another winner from T. Kingfisher, and it has proven that I will read anything her and love it, so I need to get my hands on her backlist. The Future of Another Timeline is a riot of a read, and it makes me miss the riotgrrl days a bit. I loved the time travel concept in this, how history and the future can be and is changed even without time travel, and the writing in this has a buzz running through it. Linden’s The First Sister was a surprise read for me in how much I loved it! I recently purchased the sequel, and the conclusion to the trilogy comes out later this year – feels familiar but subverts a lot of science fiction tropes in a way I enjoyed. Green’s The Anthropocene Reviewed feels just like listening to him speak on social media, and it makes me want to listen to the audiobook in the future.

WHAT I READ

💖 purchased/owned | 🌠 library/borrowed | 🔮 review copy | 💞 reread | 👻 dnf

💖 Not the Kind of Earl You Marry, by Kate Pembrooke
🔮 Thornhedge, by T. Kingfisher
💖 The Future of Another Timeline, by Annalee Newitz
💖 The Perks of Loving a Wallflower, by Erica Ridley
🌠 Of Manners and Murder, by Anastasia Hastings
💖 The Heiress Gets a Duke, by Harper St. George
💖 The Anthropocene Reviewed, by John Green
💖 The First Sister, by Linden A. Lewis

BOOKENDS: June, July, August, & September 2021

- Meg

I fell off the entire book internet thing because work has been so much busier than I expected, and it’s hard to get motivated about books when a majority of my books are still in limbo because I cannot get a hold of my moving company to actually set a date. However, now that work has evened out a little bit and I’m reading a lot of new things, I’m more motivated to post again. I have also made the decision to pivot mostly to library reads and digital reading to save money! It’s definitely easy to get caught up in the consumerism side of blogging/bookstagram, and to me it should be about the reading rather than the accumulation of shiny things.

CURRENTLY READING

I am in between books, and realized I actually did bring The Big Book of Science Fiction with me! I haven’t read anything from it yet, and I’ve been focusing on review copies and library reads. I am in between other books too, as I like to read 3-4 books at a time aside from the anthology. I’ve been venturing into the horror genre a little bit more, and I’m enjoying it, although I generally read them during the day so I don’t keep myself up too late at night. 👀

📚 bookshelf pick  |  📓 physical review copy  |  📱 digital review copy | ⌛️ library/borrowed | 💾 ebook | 🎧 audiobook  |  💞 reread

📱 My Heart is a Chainsaw – Stephen Graham Jones (15%, thank you Gallery/Saga Press!)
📓 Yours Cruelly, Elvira – Cassandra Peterson (33%; thank you, Hachette Books!)
📚 The Big Book of Science Fiction – edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (32%)

FINISHED READING

I read 10 books in June, 11 books in July, 7 books in August, and 9 books in September.

📚 bookshelf pick  |  📓 physical review copy  |  📱 digital review copy | ⌛️ library/borrowed | 💾 ebook | 🎧 audiobook  |  💞 reread

📱 Cool for the Summer – Dahlia Adler (Thank you, Wednesday Books!)
🎧 The Diviners – Libba Bray
📚 Beach Read – Emily Henry
⌛️ The Helm of Midnight – Marina J. Lostetter
⌛️ The Siren – Katherine St. John
📓 Chosen Ones – Veronica Roth (Thank you, Mariner Books!)
📚 Dick Fight Island – Reibun Ike
⌛️ Bring Me Their Hearts – Sara Wolf
📚 The Beautiful Ones – Silvia Moreno-Garcia
⌛️ Crying in H-Mart – Michelle Zauner

📓 One Last Stop – Casey McQuiston (Thank you, St. Martin’s Griffin!)
🎧 Lair of Dreams – Libba Bray
⌛️ A Master of Djinn – P. Djélì Clark
📓 The Queer Principles of Kit Webb – Cat Sebastian (Thank you, Avon!)
⌛️ Piranesi – Susanna Clarke
⌛️ Minor Feelings – Cathy Park Hong
⌛️ We Were Liars  – E. Lockhart
📓 The Agitators – Dorothy Wickenden (Thank you, Scribner Books!)
💾 Ice Planet Barbarians – Ruby Dixon
📚 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight – Anonymous
🎧 Before the Devil Breaks You – Libba Bray

📓 Earth’s Wild Music – Kathleen Dean Moore (Thank you, Counterpoint Press!)
📓 Faultlines – Emily Itami (Thank you, Custom House!)
📚 The Rakess – Scarlett Peckham
📚 Mythology – Edith Hamilton
⌛️ The World Gives Way – Marissa Levien
📚 The Outside – Ada Hoffmann
💞 Beauty Sleep – Cameron Dokey

💞 Before Midnight – Cameron Dokey
⌛️ Revelations – Mary Sharratt
⌛️ Ring Shout – P. Djélì Clark
⌛️ Tender is the Flesh – Agustina Bazterrica
⌛️ Black Water Sister – Zen Cho
⌛️ The Warrior Knight and the Widow – Ella Matthews
📓 The Inheritance of Orquidea Divina – Zoraida Cordova (Thank you, Atria Books!)
📚 Lessons in French – Laura Kinsale
💞 Sirena – Donna Jo Napoli

 

ON THE HORIZON

I recently updated my Edelweiss information, and now I have access to a lot of e-arcs. I tried not to go download happy, but three of these (The Ex Hex, Sea of Tranquility, and What Moves the Dead) are among my most anticipated. And for What Moves the Dead, as soon as I heard it was an Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” retelling, immediately shot to the top of the list and I was so excited to see it already posted as an e-arc. All of these fit an eerie, spooky vibe for spooky szn 👻👻👻.

📚 bookshelf pick  |  📓 physical review copy  |  📱 digital review copy | ⌛️ library/borrowed | 💾 ebook | 🎧 audiobook  |  💞 reread

📚 The Death of Jane Lawrence – Caitlin Starling
📚 Velvet Was the Night – Silvia Moreno-Garcia
📱 The Ex Hex – Erin Sterling (Thank you, Avon!)
📱 Sea of Tranquility – Emily St. John Mandel (Thank you, Knopf!)
📱 What Moves the Dead – T. Kingfisher (Thank you, Tor Nightfire!)

WHAT I ACQUIRED

It’s definitely time to get back into reading YA fantasy, because omg, so many good titles are out/coming out.

📚 bookshelf pick  |  📓 physical review copy  |  📱 digital review copy | ⌛️ library/borrowed | 💾 ebook | 🎧 audiobook  |  💞 reread

📚 Iron Widow – Xiran Jay Zhao
📚 Six Crimson Cranes – Elizabeth Lim
📚 Vespertine – Margaret Rogerson
📱Jade Fire Gold – June CL Tan
📱The Keeper of Night – Kylie Lee Baker

ON SCREEN

GAMING: I bought the HD rerelease of Skyward Sword, and I think the next Switch game I’m getting is Graveyard Keeper.

TV: I’ve watched most of Shadow of Bone, I really enjoyed Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Loki so far seems like a treat!

MOVIES: I have seen so many since settling in because with my Regal Unlimited card, it’s an easy, relatively inexpensive thing to do. The Green Knight and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

PERSONAL

Nothing exciting to report as I’m still waiting to hear back regarding my stuff from the movers, and that’s been an adventure.