June Wrap-Up

 Hello Interwebs!

Today was a little less good of a reading month for me but I still finished five books for a total of 1910 pages and an average rating of 4.4/5 stars. My favorite book of the month was Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid and my least favorite was The Divines by Ellie Eaton. Mostly I was very pleased with my reading choices this month and don't regret any of my choices. 

In the order I finished them, the books I read this month were:

• That Summer by Jennifer Weiner (2021): read from 5.13-6.10 and given a 4.5 star rating. This is the story of a woman named Daisy who seems to have the perfect life but just isn't happy and a woman named Diana who befriends her but seems to have a secret about something that happened one summer years ago, something that involves Daisy somehow. This was a great book and I enjoyed it immensely. 
  
  
  
  
• The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan (2021): read from 6.10-6.13 and given a 4.5/5 stars. This is a historical fiction about WWII Britain and four very different women who compete in a cooking competition to become the first female cohost on The Kitchen Front, a BBC radio program about cooking during rationing. It was a lovely story of friendship in the middle of hardship and I really loved this book. 
  
  
  
  
• Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid (2021): read from 6.13-6.18 and given a 5 star rating. This is also a historical fiction about the Riva siblings who are making their way in the world after the death of their mother and with their estranged father and  their annual end of the Summer party which gets out of control and ends up with the house burning down. This was my favorite book of the month and the perfect story for the summer. 
  
  
  
  
• The Divines by Ellie Eaton (2021): read from 6.18-6.20 and given a 3 star rating. This was about a woman in the present confronting the mysteries of her past from when she attended an elite girls boarding school, St. John the Divine. This wasn't a bad book but I was expecting more from it and the way that it jumped between the narrator's present and her past made the story feel clunkier than if it had just been all in the past as the events unfolded. 
  
  
  
  
• The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid (2017): read from 6.20-6.27 and given a 5/5 star rating. This was another historical fiction about a fictitious movie star, Evelyn Hugo, who enlists the help of a writer to pen her autobiography and the story of all seven of her husbands and reveal who the true love of her life was since she's now the only one left. This was a close second to Malibu Rising for my favorite book of the month and it was beautiful and fun and scandalous and I'm sorry I didn't read it sooner (plus husband number three was Mick Riva, the estranged father of the sibling group from Malibu Rising).
  
  
  
  

In addition to the five books I read I also bought 15 new books.

• Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid (2021) historical fiction, hardcover from Barnes & Noble
  
  
  
• Golden Girl by Elin Hilderbrand (2021) literary fiction, hardcover from Barnes & Noble
  
  
  
• Beth & Amy by Virginia Kantra (2021) The March Sisters #2, retelling, paperback from Barnes & Noble
  
  
  
• One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston (2021) romance, Kindle ebook from Amazon
  
  
  
• The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris (2021) thriller, hardcover from Book of the Month
  
  
  
• The Maidens by Alex Michaelides (2021) thriller, hardcover from Book of the Month
  
  
  
• House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (2000) horror, paperback from Barnes & Noble
  
  
  
• The Troop by Nick Cutter (2014) horror, paperback from Barnes & Noble
  
  
  
• To Drink Coffee with a Ghost by Amanda Lovelace (2019), Things that h(a)unt #1; poetry, hardcover from Barnes & Noble 
  
  
  
  
• Fullmetal Alchemist Fullmetal Edition Volume 2 by Hiromu Arakawa (2011) manga, hardcover from Barnes & Noble 
  
  
  
• Spiral by Koji Suzuki (2005) The Ring Cycle #2; horror/thriller, paperback from Amazon 
  
  
  
• Loop by Koji Suzuki (2006) The Ring Cycle #3; horror/thriller, paperback from Amazon
  
  
  
• The Language of Flowers by Odessa Begay (2020) nonfiction/reference, Kindle ebook from Amazon 
  
  
  
• The Sixth Wedding: A 28 Summers Story by Elin Hilderbrand (2021) literary fiction short story; Kindle ebook from Amazon 
  
  
  
• All Systems Red by Martha Wells (2017) The Murderbot Diaries #1; science fiction novella; Kindle ebook from Amazon 
  
  So that's it: all the books I read and bought in the month of June. Now onto July with Summerween and Jane Austen July and many more surprises on the horizon!

Happy Reading!

Richelle