August Wrap-up

Hey guys! I can’t believe I am already sharing with you my August wrap-up. Honestly it feels like August just stared yesterday. The end of the year is flying by and I’m kinda glad. I know plenty of us are just ready for this year to be over. I have been getting a lot more reading in as of late. I’m really happy about that. I still have so many books to get to. I did make a list of books I wanted to get to this year and I’m not sure I’m going to make it. I might try to squeeze them in but same time kinda been all over the place with what I want to read. Anyway, let’s dive in and see what I read in August!

One By One By Ruth Ware

Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Fiction, Adult, Suspense, Contemporary
Pages: 384 pages
Publication Date: September 8th 2020
Publisher: Scout Press
My Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Plot: The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Turn of the Key and In a Dark Dark Wood returns with another suspenseful thriller set on a snow-covered mountain.

Getting snowed in at a beautiful, rustic mountain chalet doesn’t sound like the worst problem in the world, especially when there’s a breathtaking vista, a cozy fire, and company to keep you warm. But what happens when that company is eight of your coworkers…and you can’t trust any of them?

When an off-site company retreat meant to promote mindfulness and collaboration goes utterly wrong when an avalanche hits, the corporate food chain becomes irrelevant and survival trumps togetherness. Come Monday morning, how many members short will the team be?

My Thoughts: So I don’t want to say too much because I’m aiming to get a review out on Friday since it comes out next Tuesday. I am honestly just still in shock I won the goodreads giveaway for this especially since I always get declined for the e-arc. So that still is awesome but I did enjoy this book. I can’t wait to share more with you in the review!

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Rules for Vanishing By Kate Alice Marshall

Genre: Horror, Young Adult, Mystery, Fantasy, LGBT, Fiction, Thriller
Pages: 416 pages
Publication Date: September 24th 2019
Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers
My Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars

Plot: In the faux-documentary style of The Blair Witch Project comes the campfire story of a missing girl, a vengeful ghost, and the girl who is determined to find her sister–at all costs.

Once a year, the path appears in the forest and Lucy Gallows beckons. Who is brave enough to find her–and who won’t make it out of the woods?

It’s been exactly one year since Sara’s sister, Becca, disappeared, and high school life has far from settled back to normal. With her sister gone, Sara doesn’t know whether her former friends no longer like her…or are scared of her, and the days of eating alone at lunch have started to blend together. When a mysterious text message invites Sara and her estranged friends to “play the game” and find local ghost legend Lucy Gallows, Sara is sure this is the only way to find Becca–before she’s lost forever. And even though she’s hardly spoken with them for a year, Sara finds herself deep in the darkness of the forest, her friends–and their cameras–following her down the path. Together, they will have to draw on all of their strengths to survive. The road is rarely forgiving, and no one will be the same on the other side.

My Thoughts: I really wanted to like this book so much. However I’m not sure what it was but it just didn’t do it for me. I thought the concept was so cool. It’s told through different forms which I love in a book. However I found everything very unforgettable. Also I never found myself really caring for these characters. I think there are too many characters in this story. I never had time to really become attached to anyone. I kinda knew who people were but at times I wasn’t 100% sure. I feel if it had less people involved or I had a better understanding of who was who I would have been into it more. Such a shame because I was hoping to like this one.

*This was a buddy read with Bex @As Told By Bex and Destiny @Howing Libraries.*

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Boyfriend Material By Alexis Hall

Genre: Romance, Contemporary, LGBT, Fiction, Adult, Humor
Pages: 427 pages
Publication Date: July 7th 2020
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
My Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars

Plot: Wanted:
One (fake) boyfriend
Practically perfect in every way

Luc O’Donnell is tangentially–and reluctantly–famous. His rock star parents split when he was young, and the father he’s never met spent the next twenty years cruising in and out of rehab. Now that his dad’s making a comeback, Luc’s back in the public eye, and one compromising photo is enough to ruin everything.

To clean up his image, Luc has to find a nice, normal relationship…and Oliver Blackwood is as nice and normal as they come. He’s a barrister, an ethical vegetarian, and he’s never inspired a moment of scandal in his life. In other words: perfect boyfriend material. Unfortunately apart from being gay, single, and really, really in need of a date for a big event, Luc and Oliver have nothing in common. So they strike a deal to be publicity-friendly (fake) boyfriends until the dust has settled. Then they can go their separate ways and pretend it never happened.

But the thing about fake-dating is that it can feel a lot like real-dating. And that’s when you get used to someone. Start falling for them. Don’t ever want to let them go.

My Thoughts: I ended up picking this up on Libro.FM through their influencer program. I had been seeing people talk about this book so I thought I’d check it out. I do have to say overall I did enjoy it. However like I have seen many people say the book is more talking than actual showing. I feel the two main characters don’t do as many cute things as I’d hoped. I just wanted a bit more fun. I also felt like things could have been avoided if they ended up talking to each other about certain things. It just seemed things dragged on a bit. I do have to say the audiobook was enjoyable. The narrator has an adorable London accent and that did make it fun to listen to. I love accents so it did make me want to continue listening. That was a nice plus!

*Thank you to the Libro.FM Influencer program for providing me with an ALC of Boyfriend Material in exchange for an honest review!*

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The Falling in Love Montage By Ciara Smyth

Genre: LGBT, Romance, Contemporary, Young Adult, Fiction
Pages: 368 pages
Publication Date: June 9th 2020
Publisher: HarperTeen
My Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Plot: Saoirse doesn’t believe in love at first sight or happy endings. If they were real, her mother would still be able to remember her name and not in a care home with early onset dementia. A condition that Saoirse may one day turn out to have inherited. So she’s not looking for a relationship. She doesn’t see the point in igniting any romantic sparks if she’s bound to burn out.

But after a chance encounter at an end-of-term house party, Saoirse is about to break her own rules. For a girl with one blue freckle, an irresistible sense of mischief, and a passion for rom-coms.

Unbothered by Saoirse’s no-relationships rulebook, Ruby proposes a loophole: They don’t need true love to have one summer of fun, complete with every cliché, rom-com montage-worthy date they can dream up—and a binding agreement to end their romance come fall. It would be the perfect plan, if they weren’t forgetting one thing about the Falling in Love Montage: when it’s over, the characters actually fall in love… for real.

My Thoughts: This book randomly fell on my radar. I think I discovered it through the Libby app. I was interested in the story and then read the summary and was like why not. I thought it was so cute. So many popular rom-coms were mentioned in this book which I loved. It also does deal with the main character dealing with her mother who has dementia so it is a bit more hard hitting which I enjoyed. I do enjoy super fluffy reads but I do like when topics you don’t read about as often are brought up. This does have a lot of cute moments though. I also enjoyed how things ended. I don’t want to say too much about it but I thought it was a well done ending.

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Beach Read By Emily Henry 

Genre: Romance, Contemporary, Fiction, Adult, Adult Fiction, New Adult
Pages: 361 pages
Publication Date: May 19th 2020
Publisher: Berkley
My Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Plot: A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters.

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.

They’re polar opposites.

In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they’re living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer’s block.

Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.

My Thoughts: So I kinda went out a romance/contemporary kick for like a week. I just found myself picking leading towards that. This book wasn’t really on my radar. Out of no where I kept seeing everyone talking about it. I’m a fan of a cute contemporary so I figured I had to pick it up. It was just as cute as I excepted. The two characters banter with each other nonstop. It was fun to read. I also loved their little dates that they would do to help the other with the genre they weren’t familiar with. I do wish there was more with them researching the surviving cult members because I enjoyed that a lot.

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Scythe By Neal Shusterman 

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fiction, Romance, Death
Pages: 435 pages
Publication Date: November 22nd 2016
Publisher: Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers
My Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

Plot: Thou shalt kill.

A world with no hunger, no disease, no war, no misery. Humanity has conquered all those things, and has even conquered death. Now scythes are the only ones who can end life—and they are commanded to do so, in order to keep the size of the population under control.

Citra and Rowan are chosen to apprentice to a scythe—a role that neither wants. These teens must master the “art” of taking life, knowing that the consequence of failure could mean losing their own.

My Thoughts: So this was a reread for me. I saw Bex was planning to read it and I decided to jump on and reread it. I didn’t end up getting to The Toll like I hoped to last year so I’m finally planning to get to it. I honestly realized most of what I remembered was from book one. I have to say I originally gave this 4 stars and after rereading it’s a solid 5. I just love everything about this book. I love the main characters and the side characters. The plot of this book is just so grim. I really do learning more and more about the Scythes and the rules of being a Scythe. How each one does their killings differently. It’s just such a great story. I really can’t wait to get back to Thunderhead soon!

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Clap When You Land By Elizabeth Acevedo

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Poetry, Fiction, LGBT, Realistic Fiction, Family
Pages: 432 pages
Publication Date: May 5th 2020
Publisher: Quill Tree Books
My Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

Plot: In a novel-in-verse that brims with grief and love, National Book Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Acevedo writes about the devastation of loss, the difficulty of forgiveness, and the bittersweet bonds that shape our lives.

Camino Rios lives for the summers when her father visits her in the Dominican Republic. But this time, on the day when his plane is supposed to land, Camino arrives at the airport to see crowds of crying people…

In New York City, Yahaira Rios is called to the principal’s office, where her mother is waiting to tell her that her father, her hero, has died in a plane crash.

Separated by distance—and Papi’s secrets—the two girls are forced to face a new reality in which their father is dead and their lives are forever altered.

And then, when it seems like they’ve lost everything of their father, they learn of each other.

My Thoughts: This was such a powerful read. Elizabeth Acevedo is such an amazing writer. I don’t like poetry that much but the way her words come out, she is a force to be reckoned with. I will read whatever she writes. There are just so many emotions in this book. I really don’t want to say to much but it’s definitely an emotional read. I did listen to the audiobook of this. There are two different narrators for this which I really liked. Elizabeth Acevedo does the voice of Yahaira and Melania-Luisa Marte does the voice of Camino. Both of them do such an incredible job. I highly recommend this.

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Mary: The Adventures of Mary Shelley’s Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Granddaughter By Brea Grant and Yishan Li (Illustrator)

Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult, Horror, Fiction, Graphic Novel
Pages: 144 pages
Publication Date: October 6th 2020
Publisher: Six Foot Press
My Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars

Plot: Angsty teenager Mary Shelley is not interested in carrying on her family’s celebrated legacy of being a great writer, but she soon discovers that she has the not-so-celebrated (and super-secret) Shelley power to heal monsters, just like her famous ancestor, and those monsters are not going to let her ignore her true calling anytime soon.

The Shelley family history is filled with great writers: the original Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, the acclaimed mystery writer Tawny Shelley, cookbook maven Phyllis Shelley…the list goes on and on. But this Mary Shelley, named after her great-great-great-great-great grandmother, doesn’t want anything to do with that legacy. Th2020en a strangely pale (and really cute) boy named Adam shows up and asks her to heal a wound he got under mysterious circumstances, and Mary learns something new about her family: the first Mary Shelley had the power to heal monsters, and Mary has it, too. Now the monsters won’t stop showing up, Mary can’t get her mother Tawny to leave her alone about writing something (anything!), she can’t tell her best friend Rhonda any of this, and all Mary wants is to pass biology.

My Thoughts: I randomly picked this up on Netgalley when I saw the cover. It just so happened to be a read now option. I really enjoyed the art style in this comic. It’s very gothic and edgy. I loved how everything looked. However I just felt the story was a bit rushed and not a lot was explained. I feel this could be a series but as of right now it only says there is the one. I will be keeping an eye out to see if more of this story comes out.

*Thank you so much Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a free copy of this in exchange for my honest opinion.*

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Fangs By Sarah Andersen

Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Humor, Adult, Fiction
Pages: 112 pages
Publication Date: September 1st 2020
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
My Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Plot: A new gothic romance story from the creator of the enormously popular Sarah’s Scribbles comics.

Vamp is three hundred years old but in all that time, she has never met her match. This all changes one night in a bar when she meets a charming werewolf. FANGS chronicles the humor, sweetness, and awkwardness of meeting someone perfectly suited to you but also vastly different.

My Thoughts: I had recently been wondering if Sarah Andersen had come out with anything new. Then on Netgalley I saw this and was super excited. I might not really show it but I am really into gothic things. I was drawn right away by the cover. This is such a cute story of a vampire and a werewolf falling in love. It’s cheesy and really just what I needed for right now. You’ve probably heard some of the jokes in this before but it just felt so fun. Sometimes you need something silly and non serious especially right now. I did post a review for this which you can find HERE. I highly recommend this one.

*Thank you so much Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a free copy of this in exchange for my honest opinion.*

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The Last Story of Mina Lee By Nancy Jooyoun Kim

Genre: Fiction, Contemporary, Mystery, Adult Fiction, Family, Adult, Literary Fiction
Pages: 384 pages
Publication Date: September 1st 2020
Publisher: Park Row
My Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Plot: A profoundly moving and unconventional mother-daughter saga, The Last Story of Mina Lee illustrates the devastating realities of being an immigrant in America.

Margot Lee’s mother, Mina, isn’t returning her calls. It’s a mystery to twenty-six-year-old Margot, until she visits her childhood apartment in Koreatown, LA, and finds that her mother has suspiciously died. The discovery sends Margot digging through the past, unraveling the tenuous invisible strings that held together her single mother’s life as a Korean War orphan and an undocumented immigrant, only to realize how little she truly knew about her mother.

Interwoven with Margot’s present-day search is Mina’s story of her first year in Los Angeles as she navigates the promises and perils of the American myth of reinvention. While she’s barely earning a living by stocking shelves at a Korean grocery store, the last thing Mina ever expects is to fall in love. But that love story sets in motion a series of events that have consequences for years to come, leading up to the truth of what happened the night of her death.

Told through the intimate lens of a mother and daughter who have struggled all their lives to understand each other, The Last Story of Mina Lee is a powerful and exquisitely woven debut novel that explores identity, family, secrets, and what it truly means to belong.

My Thoughts: I randomly picked this book up on a whim. When I saw it had a bit of a mystery aspect I was intrigued. This ended up being like nothing I have read before. I have never read a book about a Korean immigrant’s experience. This story is told through two different perspectives. I did end up enjoying Mina’s perspective a lot more because you learn about the hardships she dealt with before and after moving to Los Angles. Margot’s perspective took more time to get into. Overall I thought this was such a great story. It’s emotional and very eye-opening. I highly recommend this book. I did write a review for this book. There also is an expert for the book which you can find HERE.

*Thank you so much Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a free copy of this in exchange for my honest opinion.*

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Ever After By Olivia Vieweg

Genre: Horror, Young Adult, Graphic Novel, Fantasy, Adventure
Pages: 288 pages
Publication Date: September 1st 2020
Publisher: Graphic Universe (Tm)
My Rating: 2 out of 5 Stars

Plot: Vivi and Eva are two travelers in a countryside filled with the undead. After a train breaks down, stranding them between safe zones, the young women partner up to stay alive. Vivi is struggling with grief–and guilt–over the loss of her sister. Eva is hiding the start of a horrifying transformation. Together they’ll face heat, zombie hordes, and their own inner demons, searching for signs of life in a land of the dead. This graphic novel addition to an enduring genre is thoughtful and emotion-driven, but also full of zombie scares and action.

My Thoughts: This is another comic I picked up on a whim. I saw it on Netgalley and was interested in the cover. I thought the artwork in the story was so well done. It was very dark and at times a bit creepy. It gave me major fall vibes. However I just couldn’t follow the story. I didn’t really know what was going on. After a while I found myself skimming through and just looking at the art. I really can’t tell you what actually happened in this comic at all.

*Thank you so much Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a free copy of this in exchange for my honest opinion.*

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Behind Closed Doors By B.A. Paris

Genre: Thriller, Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Adult, Adult Fiction,
Pages: 293 pages
Publication Date: August 9th 2016
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
My Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Plot: Everyone knows a couple like Jack and Grace. He has looks and wealth, she has charm and elegance. You might not want to like them, but you do.

You’d like to get to know Grace better.

But it’s difficult, because you realise Jack and Grace are never apart.

Some might call this true love. Others might ask why Grace never answers the phone. Or how she can never meet for coffee, even though she doesn’t work. How she can cook such elaborate meals but remain so slim. And why there are bars on one of the bedroom windows.

Sometimes, the perfect marriage is the perfect lie.

My Thoughts: This book has been on my shelf for so long. I am so happy when Jenna asked me if I wanted to read it this month. I haven’t felt this uncomfortable from a book in a while. I don’t want to say too much but damn I wasn’t excepting this. I do have to say things did a bit repetitive but the ending makes up for it.

*This was a buddy read with Jenna @J.K. I’m Exploring*

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The Troop By Nick Cutter

Genre: Horror, Fiction, Thriller, Science Fiction, Adult, Mystery,
Pages: 358 pages
Publication Date: February 25th 2014
Publisher: Gallery Books
My Rating: 2 out of 5 Stars

Plot: Once a year, scoutmaster Tim Riggs leads a troop of boys into the Canadian wilderness for a three-day camping trip; a tradition as comforting and reliable as a good ghost story and a roaring bonfire. But when an unexpected intruder — shockingly thin, disturbingly pale, and voraciously hungry — stumbles upon their campsite, Tim and the boys are exposed to something far more frightening than any tale of terror. The human carrier of a bioengineered nightmare. An inexplicable horror that spreads faster than fear. A harrowing struggle for survival that will pit the troop against the elements, the infected … and one another.

My Thoughts: Man oh man. I really thought I was going to love this book. I went through majority of goodreads’ reviews by friends and they all loved this book. However I sadly do not fall in that category. This was a buddy read and we had sections for each day. I constantly fell behind because I didn’t have the drive to pick this up. I never felt myself fully invested in the story. It also could get really gross at times. I feel I can do gross but bugs and animal torture aren’t for me. I am sadden that I didn’t love this like everyone else did. I do have one other book by Nick Cutter so I will be checking that out in the future.

*This was a buddy read with Bex @As Told By Bex*

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Have you guys read any of these books? If so what did you think?

What books did you guys end up reading January? I would love to hear from you!

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