hello friends it's kayla. today we're
going to talk about all the books i read in july.
they're all right here and i think there's 13 of them. i think the best thing that came out of
my reading month is i didn't dislike
a single book i read. i didn't love everything by any means
but i didn't give out less than a 3.5 star this month so everything here is
a 3.5 or a 4 or a 5. i read a lot of 5 stars this month.
and.. i don't know, it was just very refreshing. so we're going to go in order
from lowest rated to highest rated so to begin
my 3.5s of the month were all of the horror "horror"
that i read this month. and then one other book. so we'll start with
these two which both have separate like dedicated videos so i don't want to go
too much into them here because if you've already
watched my mermaid reading vlog you will have
already heard about Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant.
and then um next week on sunday i'll be discussing Zoe One by
Colson Whitehead with Rachel for the literally dead book
club. these books were both good but just not like, perfect
horror things for me. 2020 is about realizing things,
and i'm realizing that creature horror isn't my favorite. Into the Drowning Deep
is about this ship that went on the hunt to like
prove mermaids exist, and then all of the crew members
died and so another expedition is going out to like find out the truth
about it. we're following a whole cast of characters (so many POVs).
i'm gonna give this book a "B" for the POVs because some were better than
others. i'm giving it an "A" (i don't know why i'm
doing this, grading my books but that's what we're doing now)
an "A" for science because there was a lot of
ocean science, marine biology stuff, autopsy stuff that was all super
fascinating for me. this gets a "C" on the scary scale. i asked
you yesterday on instagram if there are any
specific books or like parts of books that you wanted me to touch on
so where i focused the wrap up was something that you felt
valuable, and somebody asked how scary was Into the Drowning Deep.
i give it like a "C" on the scary scale and there was a couple other questions
that were like "books scare me easily- will i like this?"
and i think i kind of have a different perspective from other people
so don't take my answer as the only answer. this wasn't scary as in, like
afraid to turn pages and on the edge of my seat scary.
but for some people i know it was. I think the idea
is scary. i think there are a couple um like in a horror movie you call it a
jump scare there are a couple of scenes like that.
but if you are scared reading books i think
audiobooks could be a good option for you, so
the audiobook might give you a certain level of distance from the narrative.
so i would recommend that- i liked the audiobook. i did check it out.
i also give this book an "A" for social commentary. i think it had a good focus on like,
sensationalism over taking the safety of the mission.
and it talked about ego and humanity and the willingness
to exploit the mermaids and the people on the mission
in order to get a good news story or an interesting tv show.
all the people on this trip have different intentions of being there
but the main purpose is like to create this documentary.
and all of those scenes were really interesting. the discussions were really
interesting. also an "A" to Mira Grand (Seanan McGuire) for her willingness to like,
let her characters go through it. sometimes in books i feel like
authors are a little too scared to kill off characters,
to really just like let their characters go through it, and
sometimes when i'm reading horror i'm like "don't be shy,
kill some more" and she went there. so an overall grade of (i don't know)
a "C+" a 3.5 whatever however that math makes sense. the other one
is Zone One which is like a zombie story but it's not-
and i think we all knew this going in and i talked about this going in-
is that it's not like an adventure action story about like
killing zombies, and like turning into a zombie.
it's definitely more based in introspection
and like i said when i pitched this book it follows the main character
Mark Spitz for only three days and it says he's occupied with the
mundane mission of straggler removal. so mundane tasks are the focus of this
book. it's about like the pandemic/apocalypse.
he is clearing out certain areas, like reclaiming the city.
i wouldn't necessarily recommend this to people who love
zombie fiction and are used to action-packed stories.
i think this is more for people who love literary fiction and want just a little
bit more of a genre fiction take. i
love when books pair like supernatural horrors with the horrors
of real life, and that's definitely what this did.
so i give it an "A" for writing skill which no one is surprised by because
Colson Whitehead is a well-known, award-winning novelist.
there were some sections that had such solid writing,
and said such interesting things in a very interesting way
that i would like, re-read passages. and bonus points/
extra credit for the use of some of our vocab words! if you remember
back in the day my dictionary.com video learning the word of the day. this was like the first time since making that video that i have
heard "exoteric" and "locavore" and "aspersion"
(some of my favorite vocab words) used in a text.
so the fact that it's the first time i read them- i think goes to show
that this isn't the type of book i normally read. i do think
overall this book was a little too dense and smart for me.
the first hundred pages i really struggled through.
this is not the type of book that you can get through in a couple days. like this took me the entire month. but that's
not the book's fault, that's me. So I can't give it a grade on that,
but i also give it an "A" for like the flashback structure.
i really enjoy books that go back and forth between different timelines.
i even like being confused of what timeline we're in.
especially since this is only over three days, the fact that
there were so many flashbacks, and flashbacks within flashbacks, and it got
so convoluted in such a short time period- i just
loved. So 3.5. the other horror-y book i read was
Burn Our Bodies Down by Rory Power. another 3.5-
this one's definitely different because it's more
of a real world setting with just some weird magical elements.
this book started out so strong and ended so strong. "A+" for concept but i give it more like a "B" for
the actual plot. and a "C" for the relationships
and the characters, which apparently averages out to a 3.5
i am still a Rory Power stan. i think she is doing such interesting
things in general. i would call this much less of a niche book than Wilder Girls.
Wilder Girls i am forever obsessed with. i will continue to pick up
everything that she writes i know she's doing an adult
book next so i definitely have that on my radar. and i know
that her writing is something that very much appeals to me.
i just think like, the concept of this (which i can't even discuss
because that would be the spoiler) I think that overtook the focus. and a lot of the plot leading up to that
got a little.. just.. like, mediocre Nancy Drew,
like trying to find out the truth and hunt down some clues in the police
department basement. i think this will work for
a lot of people. i think that it's more marketable in general, this is the book of Rory Power's that
should have gotten all of the early attention and put in book
boxes. the story follows a girl named Margot and her and her mother have always had a fraught relationship.
something you'll see across most books i read and a lot of books this month
is i love a tense mother-daughter relationship.
and i love books that center around grief. in this book Margot wants to
escape her overbearing and narcissistic mother. they're going
through hard times and she runs away and finds out the town
that her mother is originally from (which she refuses to ever go back to- she
won't discuss her family history) and Margot wants to find out why. and
wants to find out the truth about her family. and so she goes back to this
town and lives with her grandmother and
meets some new people in the town. Okay I just had to recheck the plot and it
doesn't even discuss the catalyst
for the entirety of the plot so i don't even know like, how to talk about
what Margot's trying to find out. i guess all you need to know is it's family
history stuff, there is stuff to do with the corn
fields, stuff to do with fire. it starts in such like a
beautiful spooky tone, it's got all the vibes i want.
and then the reveals were amazing. but her connection to her family and her
friends... i just really needed something to root
for in the book, something to care about
besides just like wanting to root for Margot. like i wanted
her to have different connections and i feel like there are definitely
reasons that Rory Power didn't want us as readers to be
connected to anybody. but i just struggled
in like the middle portion of this book. i love that there's lesbian
representation in here without being tied to a romantic
relationship. so "A+" for that. although if there was
a romantic relationship maybe that would be the thing that i
like, wanted to root for. i was just struggling.
oh and a question i got is "what movie or another book would you
compare to Burn Our Bodies Down?" i can't say i've ever watched a movie like it,
though i'm not like really well versed in movies that have come out especially
in the last like 10 years. i also don't think i know any books that
are like this exact same premise but if you loved the idea of this being
set in the real world and then there are some weird things happening,
based in nature specifically- I definitely have a lot of books
that kind of do that, because it's one of my favorite things. And the Trees Crept
In by Dawn Kurtagich. I would recommend you Silver in the Wood
by Emily Tesh. In the House in the Dark of the Woods by
Laird Hunt. Wild Beauty by Anna-Marie McLemore.
and then maybe even these three- Mayhem by Estelle Laure.
You Must Not Miss by Katrina Leno. and A Million Junes by Emily Henry. and then also another book that i'll
mention in a little bit Follow Me to Ground by Sue Rainsford,
with that said a 3.5 is a good rating same with The Vanishing Half by
Brit Bennett, like a 3.5 is a good rating. in this book we're
following twins and then we're also following their
respective daughters. so these sisters are identical and due to their
experiences growing up in their small town with race and
colorism, they go down very different paths as adults.
one of them rejecting her identity as a Black woman,
and as they are white passing, chooses to live her life
as a white woman. but when the other sister returns to town
with a visibly Black and dark-skinned daughter- her
cover is at risk. especially when their respective daughters begin to have a
friendship things are exposed. obviously very
interesting topic-wise. i would give it an "A+" for the social commentary again.
i also give it an "A" for the character work. i think all of the characters
were interesting. some of them you hated, some of them you loved; there were a
couple characters (Loretta and Reese) that i would love
books of their own. and i think it's impressive
when a book with such an intimate cast can have such a
wide-reaching commentary and discussion.
with all that said i have never (i don't think) loved
a literary fiction book that was multi-generational
that spanned like 50-plus years. that's just not something
that i typically love; following a family
for years and years and years and multiple generations.
so there's no poor grade for any part of this book ,i just don't think it's
my style of book. i picked it up for "the unfriendly black hotties book
club". i'm getting more involved in other
people's book clubs which i've never done before.
and i didn't think this would totally be for me
and it wasn't. which is fine. i know that she's written another book called The
Mothers that got a lot of critical acclaim last year, or the year before. so definitely let me know if you think i
would love that. Overall i just as a reader,
like more drama and gimmicks i guess. i am totally down
for an open ending, but not when it comes to a book
in this style. i really felt like the ending left me just "uh...what?"
like i wanted, i wanted to see where all of these characters were years
down the line, or i wanted to see certain characters reactions to things.
there were a lot of things left untied up (obviously intentionally.) obviously a lot of people love that,
but if i am going to follow a family and characters
for so long like i need i guess a a wrap up. i loved seeing how
these characters interacted with the world, how the world interacted with them, how
they interacted with each other. everything was so
interesting, but not as heightened as i guess i wanted. i definitely still
recommend, especially to those who already pick up and love literary
fiction (adult fiction in general). and i would
recommend you go watch the playback of the live stream because
there were a lot of great discussions in there.
now we can get into my four star reads of which i have two.
Woman Hollering Creek by Sandra Cisneros and The Seep by Chana Porter.
so Woman Hollering Creek and other stories is a selection of vignettes- some stories longer than others. the pace of this- "A+"
i love how some of the stories were magic, some of them were real, a bunch of them were short and then
you get a really long one. the title story Woman Hollering Creek was impeccable. and they're just like various dips into the lives of mostly women on both sides of the Mexican border. i've
heard from a lot of people that the House on Mango Street (which is
one of my favorite books) is something read in schools, but this
one is a little more adult- so would be like targeting a kind
of different audience. it's always hard to discuss a selection
of stories because like, i don't know how- like, should i review my
favorite ones or just overall? i did see a question from this- "were
there any specific stories that stood out to you the most and maybe gave you
some insight on hispanic culture?" so my favorites i have highlighted
"barbie-q", "woman hollering creek." i also loved "eyes of zapata" and "tin tan tan" were my favorites. um i think
an overarching theme of this that i loved is
the idea and the challenging of gender roles
and also the idea of expectations. both expectations placed on you
(whether that be gender-wise or like culturally,) what's expected of
you as a young girl, what's expected of you as a wife, what's expected of you as a career. and then also internally
like, expectations for yourself. like what
you're capable of, what you should settle for. i loved how
certain stories discussed like language when in what context and how
people use Spanish versus English; how it can benefit you. again the expectations on you. and again fraught relationships, which i like
reading about, as difficult as they are. fraught relationships with
partners, with family, with the government. there
were a couple stories that brought it down from a five to a four
but that's just more in what i hoped those stories like, accomplished.
there was one (i can't remember the name of it) but i
like wanted it to be an entire book. when it ended i was upset.
which is kind of a good thing, i don't know. and then The Seep.
so this is a near future story where
like there's this alien influence that's kind of like a drug,
and i don't even know how to explain it- you have to read it. it's short, it's hard
to sum up, but it's basically like created
this utopian environment for the planet where people
can really do whatever they want, whether that be altering
their bodies (like having horns), either looking like perfect and fitting
into traditional beauty standards or like
turning your body animalistic. it also allows for immortality. everybody is
happy and everything is good and everybody agrees.
there's no poverty, there's no war; it's this utopian existence. and we're
following a character named Trina who kind of battles with her feelings
about the seep and wants the ability to have free will and thinks
that the seep has taken over in kind of a negative way.
the book is also really funny. there are some really funny interactions.
everybody gets along, right? so anytime anybody says
anything that might be a little bit negative, the other person is like..
"you're totally valid in your beliefs and i totally
support you" and it's just like this over-the-top positivity that makes it so funny. because Trina
is sad! she's grieving. she just lost her wife, who has chosen to be reborn as a baby.
and like, asks Trina if she wants to be her mother!!
but instead Trina's like... "no...." and so she's like born
into this other family. so she's just been abandoned by her long
time love, and now she's thinking about her own mortality.
she sees this boy who's like new to the idea of the seep
(because there are people who haven't experienced the seep)
living in um what's it called not a commune... a compound. and so she gets to see how the seep affects people for the first time. and it's just overall a really interesting story. "A+" for social commentary. "A+" for themes; we're talking about
passion, we're talking about
the erasure of pain and history. it's that existential sci-fi that i
always love. i don't think i can pinpoint why it
didn't get five stars- i've waffled between four and five stars.
it might be one of those books that i need to re-read before i have
an official opinion on it, because i loved so much
but like.. did it do enough? was there a couple other elements that could have
been added that this would have been perfect? i
think so but i don't know what else i'd be looking for.
the drama of it was great but i know that this won't work for everyone. i read
a review that said "this is so much more style over substance" and when i read that i was like,
"yes! that's me in a nutshell! i love style over substance oh my god." on to my five stars. half of the books that i read this month
were five stars. i'm gonna get through these two quickly because they're so
short. this is Coyote Tales by Thomas King. this i read with Liam. there's actually two stories in here
following the same coyote. in one of them the moon has disappeared (he's offended
the moon) and he has to get the moon back. and in the second one the coyote begins
stealing clothing from other animals. that story
was "A+" and led to a lot of really great
conversations with Liam. i also loved the first story in here so
just like a perfect book for children. and then
Navigate Your Stars by Jesmyn Ward is a five-star speech. it's not
a novel, it's not an essay, it's just a speech. i've seen some
reviews say that like "this isn't original, this isn't doing anything new."
and i don't think it's trying to. i think this is a great gift
for the person in your life who's just graduated
and needs a little 30 page just like, boost of encouragement.
it's about hard work, it's about perseverance, it's about persistence;
how every step you take in life leads you to the next thing, and how you can overcome different things, and your experience
is going to be difficult but it's all valuable.
i think it's a really strong five-star speech
that she originally gave at the Tulane University commencement.
the audiobook is great. listening to her and how the cadence of her voice works with what she's saying, and then the
music involved is great. but then also the physical copy has
beautiful artwork, so i think both experiences are definitely valuable,
and i highly recommend. speaking of nonfiction another five star is Bad
Feminist by Roxane Gay. i have been gushing about this all month
so i don't even feel like i need to get into it,
but somebody did ask my favorite essays which again
i've highlighted. so Bad Feminist is a really
interesting commentary on media, how womanhood and how feminism has been portrayed by media. whether it be poorly
or...well mostly poorly. she really goes in! for
the tv show Girls, the book series Sweet Valley High,
different like podcasts and interview shows
and just really comments on how she feels about media.
it is so interesting, it's so well done. every single
chapter i got something out of. "not here to make friends" is my favorite
essay. it talks about likability of characters, which is something i
constantly reference on my channel. i don't understand why people need
characters that they read about to be relatable
or likeable for them to enjoy a text. and i think this essay specifically just
perfectly explained it and i want everybody to read it.
and it talked about the difference between
men who write unlikable boys in books versus women writing unlikable girls,
and how people just- it just... inequality! you know, like the whole discussion of
feminism goes through all of these different
topics. it often doesn't seem like she's talking
about feminism at all. she's critiquing something
and then it comes back around to being like "oh yeah
this is why it's a problem for feminism and how
feminism can be so damaging. mainstream feminism, white feminism can be damaging to marginalized communities." and how it's not as inclusive
as it seems. another favorite of mine is "what we hunger for."
i know she's written an entire essay collection called Hunger
(i think it's called Hunger) that's been recommended to me a lot. another one of
my favorites is called "blurred lines indeed." for some of this i listened to
the audiobook so i don't have like the last section highlighted but i know i
really liked the portions that talked about the
music industry. she did some commentary on Twilight and
50 Shades of Grey. again a lot of these conversations
aren't new. and if you're really active like on
book twitter or bookstagram and you like actively have these conversations
already about how harmful certain narratives are, like,
this isn't brand new stuff. but this is something i highly recommend
to people just in general, whether you want to
establish your thoughts on something and you want some reference points, or whether you want to just read something
that reconfirms your values. oh Bad Feminist is just such a strong
thing. so good. my next five star is What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons, which i just
realized i rated wrong on goodreads. i gave it a
four. this was a five. i highly recommend but to a specific
person. just like The Vanishing Half is for a
specific reader, What We Lose is for a specific
reader. they kind of touch on similar topics but in totally different
ways. this is a series of vignettes; it's very stream of conscience,
it's very much just a dip into somebody's life,
all things that i love. i love the commentary
on colorism. i think it's really thoughtful and intentional, the parallels between South Africa and America and how they
differ with how they treat people and how
you're perceived as a Black woman living in both places.
we're following a character named Thandi who the author has mentioned is very much based on herself and her own experiences
and her relationship with her mother. her mother is sick throughout this book
and we have vignettes that are in a
different order (it's not a linear timeline)
and i think when you learn about how she wrote this book, how she organized
this book, and the thought process behind it- it
makes a lot of sense. again we have the main theme being grief
and the relationship between a mother and a daughter,
and the focus of this is the idea: "how do you heal when the person that you lost is the
person who you relied on for your healing in the past?"
it's very interestingly structured. we have different articles in here, photographs, charts. it's just like my kind of vibe.
it's hard to talk about like the plot of this; i pretty much covered it, but
the themes are fitting in, and family,
and it's a coming-of-age time, obviously we're discussing
race, we're discussing class, and it's mainly about grief and what we do with
grief and where we put our energy, and how to heal. it's beautiful. i also
checked out the audiobook for portions of this. like i said there's things to
visually look at that make it impactful, but also
the audiobook is an enjoyable read. so you could do them both in tandem like
i did. my next five star is guess what? another book centered
around grief and mother-daughter relationships. this
is What Momma Left Me by Renee Watson. one of my favorite authors. i've now
given three of her books four or five stars.
and this is a middle grade/lower YA story. i know somebody asked about the YA that i read and wanting
to know what age range it's appropriate for.
so this has a lot of darker themes so abuse and suicide,
and i would definitely look up like any trigger warnings before recommending
this to someone younger. but it's definitely
in that lower YA (eighth grade) range with how it tackles those topics. i think it's age appropriately discussed.
difficult topics but handled well. and the book revolves around
this girl and her brother who, their mother has died,
and their father has disappeared. and they have to start a whole new life with
new family, a new house, a new school, a new neighborhood. everything is super
unfamiliar and just as they're getting into the groove
of thing, things start to go wrong. and Serenity is dealing with
obviously her grief, and also understanding the entire situation.
she starts to (her and her brother start to) go
down the same path as their parents and it's about her making intentional decisions to do better, and to understand
what her parents were going through, and to make a better future for herself.
there's a big focus on like baking and cooking
and learning that from her mother and if she can
ever like get back into the kitchen because that's something that she's
passionate about. and i just think it's a really lovely.
again just little look into a short time period of one girl's perspective, what
she's experiencing, what she learns- it's really powerful. my next five star
is Follow Me to Ground by Sue Rainsford, and this is a
very strange book. "A+" writing. (i forgot i was given
grades.) the most memorable part of this is how
she accomplished (i don't even know how to explain it)
the writing style and the plot matching up. like i love a book that-
as the plot and the characters devolve into chaos, as does the writing.
so it just gets more confusing and more magical, fabulist as you go on, it gets
more convoluted, you just get lost as a reader in like
this fever dream. and it's everything that i
want from a reading experience. so in this book we're following a girl i
think named ADA and her and her father aren't human. they
live on like the outskirts of town and they heal people. people come to them
there's a lot of like folklore and mythology revolving
around them, and people like going to visit them, but not
trusting them, and being weary of this family.
and they essentially have the ability to like,
magically open up people's bodies, like look inside. there's a huge focus on
pregnancy. pregnant people visit them and they
check out the babies as they're growing and let
them know if like anything's gone wrong. and then also they bury people as part
of the healing process. so like in their backyard they'll like
bury someone for a couple weeks, and that will help to heal them.
i know that some people have said that this is creepy or scary
and then people will come on to the goodreads reviews and be like
"this isn't scary." and it's hard to explain
exactly what the feeling is. it's just this uneasiness. it's not
horror, it's not like "oh my god i have to close the book because i'm
freaked out." it's just an over arching sense of
uncomfortableness. with the plot, the relationships, the magic, the healing.
like it's all just strange. there is a relationship that
takes a big focus of the plot with Ada and a boy from town.
and i would definitely look into like some content warnings if you need them
for that. there's some questionable things
going on, and the themes are like i think we've got some like good
gender discussion as short as this book is. a focus on like, desire and need, loneliness. i don't know. it's messy
and weird and short and i highly recommend it to those who
like weird messy short things like i do. and
my last five star is A Song Below Water by Bethany C Morrow. it's so funny. just a consistent part of my
channel that books that everybody loves, i traditionally don't. so like while Wilder Girls
everyone was like "i don't know about this." and i loved it. Burn Our Bodies Down
a lot of people seem to really like, and i didn't love it. The Vanishing Half
people love i was just okay with. A Song Below Water, people are just okay with
but i love. i think a lot of people went into A Song
Below Water with the expectation that it was going
to be very fantasy heavy, and the world building for
the siren experience was going to be the focus of the book.
and that's on the book, not the people. because i think this book it says it's a modern fantasy about siren powers and there's a
murder trial and all this stuff.. and going into it you might expect it to
be like, the siren community, really heavy
world building, strong mythology, and like the inner workings of the siren
world...which it's not. which for me worked perfectly because as
we know; real world contemporary settings with
*this* much magic is my perfect "genre." i was just so pleasantly surprised
because it turned out to be this like more fabulous vibe.
we're following two girls; Effie and Tavia. i vlogged the reading process,
reading this and i talked about how i was confused
for like the first third like, which girl was which. which was actually
the siren? are they both sirens? because one of them works at this renaissance fair as a mermaid
and i was like, is she a mermaid? is she pretending to be a mermaid? or is that
like her covering up that she's actually a
mermaid because she pretends to be a mermaid? but as i read on everything got
explained, everything made a lot more sense, i can
definitely see why people think that it's lacking in
the mythology in the world building and all of that. i completely agree
but i don't need that. i love the unexplained. i love
the, just- again- dip into an experience. "A+" for social commentary again.
a lot of this book revolved around the silencing of sirens, but also the
silencing of Black people in America. there was a huge focus on protests
(the characters went and attended a protest.)
there is a public figure who like, comes out as a siren.
people aren't allowed to be sirens. sirens get collars put on them to
silence them. there's just a lot of really interesting themes and commentary
and i love when that's done with like a magical setting. i would
absolutely recommend you go look up more reviews on this because a lot of people
are talking about it right now. a lot of other people are doing
mermaid centric videos because there's so many mermaid type
stuff out there. i would especially recommend Ashley's video where she talks
more about like the technical aspect of this,
which i think is a great conversation to have. and that's it that's everything
that i read in July. 13 books. i will see you later. let me
know if you've read any of these or you're going to now
and i will see you in a couple minutes with my August tbr.
bye!
