Ok so summer is over. Today is officially my first day of wearing work clothes since March 13th, and I’m just a little annoyed by the fact that I will have to put on a full face of makeup today. Returning to school has been… interesting, to say the least, and I definitely think my reading this summer was affected by all the stress and craziness of the world.
That being said, I definitely read some great books this summer, particularly on audio, and the books featured below represent a wide cast and crew, from settings in Nigeria and the Bahamas, to books featuring queer characters, both adult and YA, fiction and nonfiction. In fact, of the 8 books listed below in my Best of the Summer list, only two are by straight white women featuring straight white characters. I may have read less this summer than I normally do, but I’d say that the diversity is on point.
Books are listed in the order they were read. For more mini-reviews, check out my What I Read tag.
Monthly Stats
- Total Books Read in June and July: 14 Books
- Total Authors Read in June and July: 13 Authors
- Total Pages Read: 3,799 Pages
- Total Hours Listened: 43.25 Hours
- Total Books Quit: 2 Books
- Average Days Per Book: 3.61 Days per Book
- Average Pages Per Day: 62.3 Pages per Day
The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré
Premise: Adunni wants to go to school. Her father, however, sees an opportunity to marry her off at 14 to a local taxi drive (a wealthy man in their Nigerian village), and he takes it. Despite every horrific circumstance thrown her way, Adunni keeps her eye on her mission — to get an education and help the people she loves.
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Thoughts: I’ll be honest — it’s June 2020 and, if the world were turning on its axis properly, this would have been a five star book. I personally just had a bit of trouble staying focused on the story (but that is definitely a me thing, not a book thing). I finished this book last night, and dreamed about Adunni the entire time I was sleeping, even down to her broken English language.
Adunni may be one of the most memorable characters ever. I’m talking up there with Eleanor Oliphant, Ove, Harold Fry, Evelyn Hugo. She has gone through so. much. shit. in her (very short) life, and she is still bright eyed and optimistic. She has a huge heart and wants to make the world a better place with her “louding voice”. I haven’t read a lot of books that are set in present-day Africa, so it was interesting to me to see this view of Lagos and Nigeria… plus I loved the facts about Nigeria that opened most of the chapters. Great characters, intriguing plot line, a bit of learning and expanding my horizons — recipe for success in a novel.
Who Should Read It: Anyone who is looking to diversify their reading. Anyone who enjoys strong female characters. Anyone who wants an optimistic read, despite the circumstances.
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
Premise: A young lawyer moves to Alabama to defend people on death row. This book chronicles Stevenson’s move to Alabama and some of the key cases he defended while starting and running at the Equal Justice Initiative, taking a hard look at our broken justice system in America.
Rating: 5 Stars
Thoughts: How do you rate a book that is so gut-wrenching? So soul-crushing? So unbearable in the fact that this is real? Five stars, although I simultaneously wanted it to end and couldn’t stop listening. Stevenson, who is the most humble man ever, writes about his encounters with prisoners on death row. This book focuses quite a bit on the case of Walter, a black man convicted of murdering a white girl, even though he had an alibi, the witnesses were shady at best, and the police knew he didn’t do it. But he was still convicted and sentenced to death.
Stevenson worked with him and told his story extensively, but he also told the stories of other people who were wrongfully convicted, like a mother who gave birth to a stillborn child but was accused of (and thrown in jail for) murder, or a child who shot his mother’s abusive boyfriend at 12 years old and was sent to an adult prison, where he encountered horrific things. I could go on, but the book speaks for itself. This book really opened my eyes to the injustices in our justice system. I mean, I knew it wasn’t fair, that it was racist and elitist, but this book just put a spotlight on the issue, and it’s one I won’t stop speaking out about.
Who Should Read It: Anyone interested in learning more about systemic racism. Anyone wanting a new perspective on the prison system. Anyone who believes courts are fair and just places.
The Flight Portfolio by Julie Orringer
Premise: Varian Fry is sent to France in search of artists. It’s the start of WWII, before the Americans were officially involved, but Fry sees the importance of saving these brilliant minds and outspoken revolutionaries, and he will do anything he can to save as many refugees as he can.
Rating: 4 Stars
Thoughts: I chose this book from Book of the Month last year and regretted it as soon as it came in. It is a longer book (550+ pages) and the cover just didn’t interest me, so it sat, unread, on my shelves for a year. I shouldn’t have waited so long. Despite a few people warning me that it was a slow start, I was captivated by Fry’s character from the first pages of his story. He was such a conflicted character, with a serious case of imposter syndrome and a secret he was deeply ashamed of. The fact that this story was based on a real live person is just kind of astounding.
I thought this story was so nuanced and intriguing. We see the start of Fry’s work in Paris with him trying to recruit Chagall (!!) to flee the country, where he feels like he can’t seem to succeed at anything. We see him reconnect with an old flame, a man he left behind when he chose to marry his wife Eileen. We see him struggle with the notion that he is less than, even while he’s accomplishing more than he could have dreamed. I loved Fry’s character so much, even when he was making mistakes. I loved the (wide) cast of characters he had around him (although I only focused on remembering who some of them were, because the cast of artists and writers changed constantly). I just honestly really enjoyed this book for what it was — a depiction of a real-life spy in WWII who was also a broken man.
Who Should Read It: Anyone who likes WWII historical fiction. Anyone looking for a great, realistic character. Anyone who enjoys the politics of war.
Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera
Premise: Juliet comes out to her family the night before she leaves the Bronx to go to Portland for the summer. She’s determined to change her life, and her first step is interning with the author of her favorite book, Raging Flower. What she finds in Portland, however, is an identity crisis as she struggles to find herself and her voice amongst the crowd.
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Thoughts: I have thoughts on this book, but honestly, I’m struggling to figure them out. I was initially very into the book, then it fell apart for me, then it finished strong, so… how does that translate into a rating? I don’t know. The thing I struggled with the most was the stream of consciousness style of writing that Rivera employed. When Juliet first arrived in Portland, her story got a bit muddled and felt a bit too washed out for me. It honestly felt a bit like Juliet had ADHD with her bouncing around in her thoughts. I also struggled with Harlowe as a character from the very beginning… she seemed too much of a caricature of a Portland hippie.
But as the book went on, I adapted to the writing style and the characters became much more nuanced. I still struggled with Harlowe, but for the more obvious “white-savior-inherently-racist-feminist” reasons… even she gained more nuance as the book went along. Honestly, Juliet is the star of this show, though, and I loved her. I thought she was witty and bright, I loved how she wrote down everything she needed to Google later (book is set in 2003), and her willingness to dive deep into humanity just made me question everything I’ve known about the world. I thought that this book was inherently anti-racist and was not willing to allow the white characters to take the forefront, so if you’re a white lady like me, prepare to feel a bit uncomfortable. Overall, I thought it was an amazing example of intersectional feminism and the fight for identity in a world that wants to contain loud voices.
Who Should Read It: Anyone who enjoys fierce main characters. Anyone looking for a good read on intersectional feminism. Anyone interested in reading more about the gay BIPOC experience.
The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
Premise: Xiomara does not have it easy. Since middle school, she’s drawn the eyes of boys and men, and her very-Catholic mother believes that Xiomara is asking for all of the trouble she’s getting into. Xiomara just wants to be a poet, but she struggles to have her voice heard in a loud world determined to drown her out.
Rating: 5 Stars
Thoughts: I am not a poetry reader. I don’t really enjoy it, I’m not super analytical, and my English teachers did a terrible job making me love it. So, as many good things as I’ve heard about this book, I put it off because it’s written in verse. How silly I was. Someone recommended the audiobook, because Elizabeth Acevedo narrates the book, and WOAH it was amazing. Acevedo is a slam poet, and her narration conveyed the emotion of her poetry so much more than just reading it on the page would have done for me.
Xiomara is TOUGH. But she’s also soft. And I love love loved the dichotomy between her hard exterior and her vulnerable thoughts, which we get access to via her poetry. The love story in this book is adorable (like, one of my favorite love stories of the year), and her relationship with her mother (and, through her mother, religion) was really intriguing to see evolve. My favorite part of Xiomara’s story, however, was her struggle with her body image. She is well-developed and she knows she draws mens’ eyes, but she’s also a sheltered 15 year old, and her struggle with her developing body, the attention it gets, and the persona she puts on for the public was so intriguing and I feel like so many teenagers would relate to it. I really loved every aspect of this story, and I highly recommend the audiobook.
Who Should Read It: Anyone who wants a diverse YA book. Anyone looking for a great audiobook. Anyone who enjoys slam poetry.
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
Premise: Desiree and Stella are twins, but, while Desiree seems like the type to rebel, it was Stella who broke away from Louisiana and her identity as a Black woman and married a white man, passing as while and giving birth to a white daughter. The novel follows them from their running away at 16 through the consequences of their decisions along the way.
Rating: 4 Stars
Thoughts: Maybe I’m being stubborn by giving this book 4 stars, because the hype is so real here. Some of my favorite Instagram follows have said that this is the best book they’ve read in years and a book that will forever change them, and I definitely don’t feel that way. Could be the circumstances (it was a busy month, with not a lot of reading time), but I’m not sure this novel lived up to the intense hype.
That being said, it was a pretty good book, with characters who were deeply flawed and constantly questioning themselves and their surroundings. There was a huge amount of character growth, which I love, and such an interesting dichotomy with the twins and then again with their daughters. The whole idea of “white passing” threw me for a loop, especially because this book was set in the 1960s-1980s, when race relations were terrible and passing for white could get a Black person killed. I really liked the characters, including the supporting cast, and I thought the transgender component was a really interesting touch. It felt a little progressive for the 1960s (these characters certainly weren’t living the norm for the time), but as a whole, I really enjoyed the book and it gave me a lot to think about.
Who Should Read It: Anyone who likes character studies. Anyone interested in learning more about the concept of “white passing”. Anyone who likes a well-crafted plot structure.
The Golden Hour by Beatriz Williams
Premise: It’s 1943 and Lulu’s husband (her new husband of only a few months) goes missing. In the process of looking for him, her past, and the past of Elfriede, unravel and come back together.
Rating: 4 Stars
Thoughts: I’ll keep screaming it — Beatriz Williams is the perfect summer read. Honestly, her books are so good at transporting me and making me believe in love again. While her stories are not history-heavy like some historical fiction, their location and time are usually enough to draw me in, and the characters with their sass and smarts keep me in the novel way past my bedtime.
This novel was no different. Lulu is a firecracker and I love her journalistic instincts. Meanwhile, Elfriede was motherly and caring. And, whew, this book was just a bit steamy. Not descriptive, but the love stories in this novel were enough to make my heart explode a little. I also thought the storyline was so well-woven, jumping between time and characters to reveal the secrets in a way that kept me guessing until the end. And that ending! So good. Anyway, if you haven’t read Beatriz Williams yet, what are you waiting for?
Who Should Read It: Anyone looking for a good love story. Anyone wanting a book to read on the beach.
The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix
Premise: The small Old Village in South Carolina is full of Southern housewives who mean well, but also feel very suspicious of outsiders. When James Harris moves into town to take care of his aging great aunt, the ladies charm him with southern hospitality and gossip, but there’s something not quite right about him, and Patricia knows it, even if no one will believe her.
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Thoughts: This book was ridiculous. Honestly. When I was listening to it (and I highly recommend listening to the audio because the narrator is hilarious in her southern accents), I actually shook my head and laughed out loud. At times, the story bordered on satirical, like… are you really treating this outrageous event like nothing really happened? “Oh sure, Patricia got her earlobe bitten off by a crazed lunatic, bless her heart.” What?! Hilarious.
But this book also isn’t for the faint of heart. It was a bit gory (at least, more gory than I am used to reading), and it had my heart racing at points. Patricia is so ballsy and I feel like I would 100% be Grace in this situation. I knocked off a half star because it took so long to get to the slaying part (lol), but honestly, it was just a great mix of hilarity and true crime and vampires and southern charm.
Who Should Read It: Anyone who likes true crime. Anyone who enjoyed My Sister, the Serial Killer. Anyone looking for a Twilight for adults mixed with My Favorite Murder.
