Buckle up, here’s the backlist bonus reads for July.
Statistics
Age Category: 1 MG, 2 YA, 1 A
I love that mix!
Genres: 1 Fantasy, 1 Mystery/Thriller, 1 Historical Fiction, 1 Contemporary
I love that mix, too!
Indie Authors: 4 N
OK can I blame this on the fact that my backlist is traditionally published heavy?
Total Pages Read: 1513
Average Pages per Book: 378
Over 300 and I’m happy.
Ratings: 2, 3, 4, 5
Well that’s quite the spread, isn’t it?
Notes and Details
The School for Good and Evil
Goodreads link for this one: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42080479-the-school-for-good-and-evil
I listened to this one as an audiobook from my local library. It’s over 500 pages long so the audiobook takes some time. BUT it’s well narrated and well done. I recommend that version if you’re digging into this story.
The Verdict: I went 3 stars for this one. The short version is I loved the premise but found the way the story played with stereotypes to be too much for the lesson they were trying to teach. It came out as more of a focus on appearance than, I think, they were going for. Which is unfortunate. I did, however, love the ending. I may give book 2 a shot just for that!
Good Me Bad Me
Goodread link for this one: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25365530-good-me-bad-me
I listened to this one as an audiobook from my local library. The audiobook is well narrated and well done! It really brings this book to life. Recommended in this format.
The Verdict: I went 4 stars for this one. Mystery/thriller fans will like this one.
If you are a fan of unreliable narrators (like I am) throw this one on the list up near the top somewhere. It’s fascinatingly well done.
Orphan Monster Spy
Goodreads link for this one: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35575184-orphan-monster-spy
This was a hardcover I picked up at the dollar store literally because I liked the cover. Yes, even with a TBR of over 150 books I still regularly cover shop if the price is right.
The wheel picked MOST RECENT PURCHASE for this one and it was, in fact, the most recent thing I’d purchased. YAY!
The Verdict: This book is great! If you are a fan of historical fiction (specifically WWII), strong females in your YA, or a fan of Enola Holmes … get this one. 5 Stars because it will appeal to people even if they don’t normally read this genre.
Palo Alto
Goodreads link for this one: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7840834-palo-alto
The wheel decided my husband should choose my next read. He owned this one in ebook format and read it YEARS ago. He knew it had been sitting on my TBR for a long time so he decided this was what I was reading next.
The Verdict: I was underwhelmed by this one. I wanted it to be good (I love YA Contemporary usually). Instead, I was frustrated with the similar voices for all the characters, the choppy sentences, and the flat prose that suffers from straight up telling me lots of events. 2 stars for this problematic book.
Side note: The second half of the book did fix the choppy sentence problem, but the rest of the problems remained.
That’s it!
Only 4 bonus books in July. Honestly, July wasn’t the best reading month for me. But that’s ok. I read books and I made progress.
I also JUST noticed I never posted the bonus comp post for June (oops) so expect that to come soon. Yes, they’ll be out of order. I don’t even have an explanation for it. SORRY!
Leave a Reply