Hey guys! So like I said before I took a break from blogging in August. I never ended up posting a Wrap-up for July so I thought I’d share with you what I ended up reading. I am sorry things are so behind right now. I am happy to be getting back into things. I have missed talking to everyone on here. Anyway, let’s dive into my Wrap-up.
Ana and The French Kiss By Stephanie Perkins
Genre: Young Adult, Romance, Contemporary
Pages: 372 pages
Publication Date: December 2nd 2010
Publisher: Dutton Juvenile
My Rating: 2 out of 5 Stars
Plot: Anna is looking forward to her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. Which is why she is less than thrilled about being shipped off to boarding school in Paris–until she meets Étienne St. Clair. Smart, charming, beautiful, Étienne has it all…including a serious girlfriend.
But in the City of Light, wishes have a way of coming true. Will a year of romantic near-misses end with their long-awaited French kiss?
My Thoughts: I was really excited to finally pick up this book. I’ve been hearing so many great things about it for such a long time. So I finally picked it up with Destiny @Howling Libraries. Well I have to say we both were really disappointed in this book. I didn’t like the main character one bit. She was an extremely frustrating character to deal with. I really didn’t see what all the hype was about. It was such a shame because I had been anticipating reading this one for a while.
The Last Time I Lied By Riley Sager
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Fiction
Pages: 384 pages
Publication Date: July 3rd 2018
Publisher: Dutton
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Plot: Two Truths and a Lie. The girls played it all the time in their tiny cabin at Camp Nightingale. Vivian, Natalie, Allison, and first-time camper Emma Davis, the youngest of the group. The games ended when Emma sleepily watched the others sneak out of the cabin in the dead of night. The last she–or anyone–saw of them was Vivian closing the cabin door behind her, hushing Emma with a finger pressed to her lips.
Now a rising star in the New York art scene, Emma turns her past into paintings–massive canvases filled with dark leaves and gnarled branches that cover ghostly shapes in white dresses. The paintings catch the attention of Francesca Harris-White, the socialite and wealthy owner of Camp Nightingale. When Francesca implores her to return to the newly reopened camp as a painting instructor, Emma sees an opportunity to try to find out what really happened to her friends.
Yet it’s immediately clear that all is not right at Camp Nightingale. Already haunted by memories from fifteen years ago, Emma discovers a security camera pointed directly at her cabin, mounting mistrust from Francesca and, most disturbing of all, cryptic clues Vivian left behind about the camp’s twisted origins. As she digs deeper, Emma finds herself sorting through lies from the past while facing threats from both man and nature in the present.
And the closer she gets to the truth about Camp Nightingale, the more she realizes it may come at a deadly price.
My Thoughts: I really enjoyed Riley Sager’s book Final Girls last year so when I heard about his new book I was extremely excited for it. Well he did not disappoint. I ended up really enjoying this a lot. If you’re interested in my thoughts on it, you can check out my review here.
Unbury Carol By Josh Malerman
Genre: Horror, Fantasy, Westerns, Fiction, Adult
Pages: 367 pages
Publication Date: April 10th 2018
Publisher: Del Rey
My Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
Plot: Carol Evers is a woman with a dark secret. She has died many times . . . but her many deaths are not final: They are comas, a waking slumber indistinguishable from death, each lasting days.
Only two people know of Carol’s eerie condition. One is her husband, Dwight, who married Carol for her fortune, and—when she lapses into another coma—plots to seize it by proclaiming her dead and quickly burying her . . . alive. The other is her lost love, the infamous outlaw James Moxie. When word of Carol’s dreadful fate reaches him, Moxie rides the Trail again to save his beloved from an early, unnatural grave.
And all the while, awake and aware, Carol fights to free herself from the crippling darkness that binds her—summoning her own fierce will to survive. As the players in this drama of life and death fight to decide her fate, Carol must in the end battle to save herself.
My Thoughts: I was really looking forward to this book. I ended up reading the plot and was sold. However what I ended up reading was not what I was expecting at all. *Spoilers ahead* Well I was expecting Carol to get buried pretty early on in the story. It didn’t end up happening until the very end of the book. *Spoilers done* I was so bored with this story. I read about 200 pages then skipped to the end of the book. I basically had my friend tell me what happened cause I had no interest in finishing the story. It really wasn’t what I was expecting at all. Such a shame.
The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer By Michelle Hodkin
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance
Pages: 456 pages
Publication Date: September 27th 2011
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Plot: Mara Dyer believes life can’t get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there.
It can.
She believes there must be more to the accident she can’t remember that killed her friends and left her strangely unharmed.
There is.
She doesn’t believe that after everything she’s been through, she can fall in love.
She’s wrong.
My Thoughts: This ended up being such a quick read. I felt like I ended up flying through the story. I ended up enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. It does kinda have a quick romance which I’m not really into but I still really enjoyed this book. The ending really left things hanging and I can’t wait to read the next one.
Sharp Objects By Gillian Flynn
Genre: Mystery, Fiction, Thriller
Pages: 254 pages
Publication Date: September 26th 2006
Publisher: Broadway Paperbacks
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Plot: Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment: she must return to her tiny hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls. For years, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely knows: a beautiful thirteen-year-old with an eerie grip on the town. Now, installed in her old bedroom in her family’s Victorian mansion, Camille finds herself identifying with the young victims—a bit too strongly. Dogged by her own demons, she must unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past if she wants to get the story—and survive this homecoming.
My Thoughts: So this was a reread. I wanted to reread the book to get myself ready for when the show came out. My memory was a bit hazy on some of the events that went down in the book. I enjoyed this book just as much as I did the first time I read it. There were just a couple things here and there I didn’t agree with. I ended up taking a star away because of that. Deff worth checking out.
NOS4A2 By Joe Hill
Genre: Horror, Fiction, Fantasy, Thriller
Pages: 692 pages
Publication Date: September 27th 2011
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Plot: NOS4A2 is a spine-tingling novel of supernatural suspense from master of horror Joe Hill, the New York Times bestselling author of Heart-Shaped Box and Horns.
Victoria McQueen has a secret gift for finding things: a misplaced bracelet, a missing photograph, answers to unanswerable questions. On her Raleigh Tuff Burner bike, she makes her way to a rickety covered bridge that, within moments, takes her wherever she needs to go, whether it’s across Massachusetts or across the country.
Charles Talent Manx has a way with children. He likes to take them for rides in his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith with the NOS4A2 vanity plate. With his old car, he can slip right out of the everyday world, and onto the hidden roads that transport them to an astonishing – and terrifying – playground of amusements he calls “Christmasland.”
Then, one day, Vic goes looking for trouble—and finds Manx. That was a lifetime ago. Now Vic, the only kid to ever escape Manx’s unmitigated evil, is all grown up and desperate to forget. But Charlie Manx never stopped thinking about Victoria McQueen. He’s on the road again and he’s picked up a new passenger: Vic’s own son.
My Thoughts: This was another book I had been anticipating reading. I have to say I didn’t end up enjoying it as much as I thought I would. I just wasn’t really as into it as I would have liked. It was shocking and gory. Those are two things I love in a book but I don’t know something just felt off about it. I have a couple other books by Joe Hill I still wanna try.
Lady Mechanika: The Clockwork Assassin #1 By Joe Benítez
Genre: Science Fiction, Comic, Graphic Novel
Pages: 32 pages
Publication Date: June 26 2018
Publisher: Diamond Book Distributors
My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Plot: The murder of a former colleague forces Lewis to confront the ghosts of his past. But will the incidents in the present haunt his future forever – as well as Lady Mechanika’s?
My Thoughts: I love these comics so much. I think the story is so interesting. Plus the artwork is so well done. I am in love with the style and how everything looks. It is really well done and I wish more people read these comics.
The Hanging Girl By Eileen Cook
Genre: Young Adult, Mystery, Thriller
Pages: 320 pages
Publication Date: October 3rd 2017
Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers
My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Plot: Skye Thorn has given tarot card readings for years, and now her psychic visions are helping the police find the town’s missing golden girl. It’s no challenge—her readings have always been faked, but this time she has some insider knowledge. The kidnapping was supposed to be easy—no one would get hurt and she’d get the money she needs to start a new life. But a seemingly harmless prank has turned dark, and Skye realizes the people she’s involved with are willing to kill to get what they want and she must discover their true identity before it’s too late.
My Thoughts: I ended up enjoying this more than I thought. It had a lot of twists throughout the book that were enjoyable and that I did not see coming. I guess the only reason I didn’t give it a higher rating because it just felt like something was missing. I enjoyed it but it wasn’t something that 100% blew me away if that makes sense. I feel it’s worth checking out. It ended up being a quick read for me.
Have you guys read any of these books? If so what did you think? What books did you guys end up reading in July? I would love to hear from you!
Bookish In Bed 
I adore everything Mara and Noah so happy you loved it
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I am so excited to continue with the series.
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