Last Month in Review: July 2014

July is typically a low-reading month for me.  It's the time I get back from my summer vacation, and thus nearly all of my energy is sucked up by work, trying to catch from being away for 2.5 weeks.  This year I also happened to be hosting a readalong in July, and I almost made it through the month without binge-reading the entire book, but not quite. While there's no non-fiction here, the fiction really runs quite the gamut. In chronological order:

1. Ruby by Cynthia Bond.  This book is amazing.  Awesome.  Stunning.  Etc. I read the first 100 pages of it back in January or February, pursuant to my store's First Editions Club, but then I put it down for other work-related reading and never picked it back up again.  It is, without a doubt, the finest book I read on vacation this year year and one of the finest books I've ever read.  To think that it is a debut novel is astonishing.  Think Toni Morrison, by way of all of the great Southern writers who know that there is no place like, nor more complicated than, home and you'll have a pretty good idea of this book.

2. Zac and Mia by A. J. Betts.  Goodness me, but it seems like the whole "teenagers with cancer" subject has become its own YA subgenre.  This one hails from Australia and is pretty good.  Less snarky than The Fault In Our Stars, more friendship-oriented, this one is worth reading if you're totally into the whole kids with terminable disease thing.

3. Mortal Heart by Robin LaFevers.  This is the third book in the His Fair Assassin trilogy.  This might be my favorite of the three book series. Gods of yore, court intrigue, political machinations, and some kick-ass Handmaidens of Death. That's right, I said Handmaidens of Death. I would have swooned to read these as a pre-teen or young teen and no doubt they would have been dog-eared and read to within an inch of their lives. 

4. Reunion by Hannah Pittard.  Okay, I get that authors are a little sick of their readers wondering how much of their books are autobiographical, but when the first person narrator looks and sounds quite a bit like the writer herself, I think it's totally legit to wonder how much of the book is based on the author's personal experience.  If you don't want readers to ask that, then don't write about a  tall, deep-voiced, socially awkward professor at a Chicago-area school trying to get her life together if you yourself are a  tall,  deep-voiced,  professor at a Chicago-area school. Just sayin'. That being said, I really liked this book about a family of step-siblings from various marriages coming together when their father commits suicide.  Pittard demonstrates once again that the Greeks were right: family IS the original source of drama and comedy.  

5. Rooms by Lauren Oliver.  It's almost like the author was listening to me when I requested that she take on an adult novel and bring her skills to bear writing a book for people older than 13.  I've read a number of Oliver's other books (the Delirium trilogy and Panic), but I was always a little disappointed at the lack of nuance her books show. Oliver knows about pacing and plot and this time she shows a greater depth than what we've seen from her so far.  This one is a ghost story told with multiple narrators (natch--her style hasn't changed that much), and it works.  It really works. 

6. How To Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran.  This is the book that I'm hosting a prepublication readalong for. It's been a ton of fun, but I'm afraid the book was so enthralling that I simply couldn't stop reading it.  Maybe that makes me a bad host, but I don't think I can be fussed about it.  This book is GOOD.  It's funny and smart and largely autobiographical.  It also fills a large gap in the coming-of-age genre that readers have been waiting for, for decades.  Basically it's the 21st century equivalent of Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret meets the movie Almost Famous, with precisely the right and necessary amounts of social commentary and feminism. 

So basically, it was month chock-full of ladies.  Not a bad showing, by any means, but not so fantastic when compared to the previous month. 

What about you?  What did you read in August that you loved ?  Hated?  Inquiring minds want to know!

NB: All of these were provided in galley or e-galley form by the publisher at my request.