May was a much more enjoyable reading month overall, no duds, just solid reads. It was in organizing my Goodreads that I figured out that I’d read another book this month (Ana Maria and the Fox) because somehow Goodreads kept my update/review about the book but didn’t mark the date on which I finished it. Now that Emily Henry’s books are being released in hardcover first rather than paperback originals, I’m fortunate enough to access the arcs and read those while I wait for the paperback releases to match the rest of my books. Summer Sons is excellent Appalachian dark academia horror, and I definitely want to read more of Mandelo’s work. Juniper & Thorn and Godkiller lived up to my expectations, which was a nice surprise after reading some other popular stuff in the previous months that was just… not great.
WHAT I READ
💖 purchased/owned | 🌠 library/borrowed | 🔮 review copy | 💞 reread | 👻 dnf
🌠 Ana María and the Fox, by Liana De la Rosa
💖 Summer Sons, by Lee Mandelo
💖 Superman vs. Meshi, vol. 1, by Satoshi Miyagawa, illus. Kai Kitago
💖 Juniper & Thorn, by Ava Reid
🔮 Funny Story, by Emily Henry
💖💞 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Tales of Terror, by Robert Louis Stevenson
💖 Godkiller, by Hannah Kaner
Mr Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance, that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary and yet somehow lovable. At friendly meetings, and when the wine was to his taste, something eminently human beaconed from his eye; something indeed which never found its way into his talk, but which spoke not only in these silent symbols of the after-dinner face, but more often and loudly in the acts of his life. He was austere with himself; drank gin when he was alone, to mortify a taste for vintages; and though he enjoyed the theatre, had not crossed the doors of one for twenty years. But he had an approved tolerance for others; sometimes wondering, almost with envy, at the high pressure of spirits involved in their misdeeds; and in any extremity inclined to help rather than to reprove. ‘I incline to Cain’s heresy,’ he used to say quaintly; ‘I let my brother go to the devil in his own way.’ In this character, it was frequently his fortune to be the last reputable acquaintance and the last good influence in the lives of down-going men. And to such as these, so long as they came about his chambers, he never marked a shade of change in his demeanour.