The July ’17 Overview
Oh my, how time flies.. I managed to read quite a lot, but blog not so much.. Shame on me. I will try to be better this month, but I feel like I need to start experimenting a little bit with what I want my blog to be. Anyway, that is not what this post is about! Let’s look at the books I’ve read in July.
Here are the books I read in July with the rating I gave on Goodreads (X out of 5) and my thoughts in a quick 1 or 2-sentence review.
June
(A quick addition to last month, because reading 10 books was apparently not enough..)
‘Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda’ by Becky Albertalli *****
I really enjoyed this book. I had heard great things about it and it did not disappoint. Just a lovely coming of age YA story about a gay boy who is perfectly at peace with his sexuality. He just doesn’t know why he should be ‘coming out’ and why it should be a big thing.
July
‘The Girls’ by Emma Cline ****
I got Gillian Flynn vibes from this book. The girls in the book are disturbing and cruel and just REAL. Maybe it is because my own thoughts sometimes spiral towards disturbing stuff (anyone who has read some of my writing assignments will attest to this), but I love it when girls/women are written as ‘bad’ people.
‘Isla and the Happily Ever After’ by Stephanie Perkins ****
The third installment of ‘Anna and the French Kiss’, it was really lovely. Just what I expected from a sweet YA romance, no complaints here.
‘Run to You’ by Rachel Gibson ****
Just like any other Rachel Gibson novel. There is a reason I own all of Rachel Gibsons books (I am obessed) and this one ticked all the boxes once again.
‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ by Gabriel García Márquez ****
A slower read then the others (which is why I read/finished the above while reading this one). I was amazed at how quickly I became sucked into the world of Macondo. It was sometimes hard to keep track of the timeline, since Márquez will foreshadow something in one sentence and then spend multiple chapters leading up to the ‘event’ already explained. However, overall it was a wonderful book.
‘Makkelijk leven’ by Herman Koch **
The ‘boekenweekgeschenk’ of last years Boekenweek. I did not like it. The main character was an asshole and the book was to short to really give him any depth or explain what the fuck was happening and why. I was glad the book was so thin, otherwise I would not have even bothered finishing it.
‘The Lonely Hearts Hotel’ by Heather O’Neill *****
Just harrowingly beautiful. I loved it. It is our next book club read (for September) and was supposed to be a ‘summer read’, I finished it in two days. People mention it in line with ‘The Night Circus’ which might be one of my all time favorite books and I did not get it at first. However, now I do. It is its sad, tragic sibling in an unexpected, under the surface sort of way.
‘Undying: A Love Story’ by Michel Faber ****
The ‘mini’ book club read. It is a poetry collection of poems about the death and grieving of his wife who died of cancer. It was beautiful and the poems were simple, but deep (if that makes sense).
August
Looking back at the books I planned to read in my previous post I did not do very well.. The list consisted of two books and I read neither. So let’s try a little bit better to stick to the script this time.. I am also joining the #BBBookstagram challenge, so head over to my Instagram to see a new picture every day!
- ‘Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind’ by Yuval Noah Harari
- ‘Eligible’ by Curtis Sittenfeld
- ‘Vanishing Girls’ by Lauren Oliver
- ‘Dood van een thrillerschrijfster’ by Pauline Slot
- ‘Go Set a Watchman’ by Harper Lee
- ‘All the Bright Places’ by Jennifer Niven