Wrap Up: July 2020

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Books I Read In July

In July, I read 6 books. So . . . not a great reading month, but some of these books are chunky boys!

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman was a reread of a childhood favorite. It’s a science fiction story about parallel universes and a community of nomads who are trying to rescue their kidnapped children. I read this book many times as a teenager, but I’d forgotten how slow the beginning is. It takes forever for anything to happen! The middle and end make up for it, though. (Well, aside from the melodrama at the very end. OMG, people. Calm down.) Once the action starts, it doesn’t stop. I still love this book. It’s bizarre, a little creepy, and will (eventually) keep you on the edge of your seat. Now I want to reread the other two books in the series.

In The Unlikely Event by Judy Blume. The premise is fascinating and based on events from the author’s real life. It’s about a town near an airport where planes keep crashing. The people in town are trying to live their lives, but there’s always the threat that a plane will fall on them. I enjoyed the plot, but I think there are too many characters and storylines. I was sometimes tempted to skim to get back to the characters that interested me the most. Good story, though!

Alabama Moon by Watt Key made me laugh. The main character, Moon, thinks he can solve all of life’s problems by punching annoying people. I believe Twitter would call that #mood. If you love books like Hatchet, you’ll enjoy Alabama Moon. It’s an easy middlegrade read with tons of action. Moon has spent his entire life in the Alabama wilderness. After his father dies, he runs into problems with the local constable and goes on a quest to discover why his father abandoned society to raise his family in the woods. It’s an excellent book. I would have loved it as a kid.

The Hunger by Alma Katsu is the story of the Donner Party, but with witches and supernatural zombie-wolf-human creatures. Mostly, I loved it. The beginning is slow because there are a ton of characters that need to be introduced, but I didn’t care. I’m fascinated by the Donner Party and have read a lot of nonfiction about them. (For nonfiction, I recommend The Indifferent Stars Above and Cannibalism.) I think it’s brave for an author to write a supernatural horror story about real people. I’d be too paranoid about offending their descendants. If you like historical horror, I recommend picking this book up. It’s a creepy, witchy, surprising twist on a familiar story.

Another childhood favorite: The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman. This is a sequel to The Golden Compass and was my favorite in the series when I was a young teen. The series is about two kids who can open doors to parallel universes. Chaos ensues. I liked The Subtle Knife because it was faster paced than The Golden Compass, and the vampire creatures gave me nightmares. I loved rereading it. Five stars! My only criticism is that some events happen too easily or conveniently. I didn’t notice that stuff as a kid.

Spectacle by Jodie Lynn Zdrok is set in 1800s Paris and stars a teenage journalist who uses her psychic powers to track down a serial killer. I love the setting, and I love that the main character is interested in morbid stuff. (I am too!) There are two major storylines happening in the book. One of them is about finding the serial killer. The other is about the main character learning to accept her psychic abilities. I was way more interested in the serial killer plotline. I understand that learning to be psychic is (probably) difficult, but I was impatient for the character to embrace her powers and concentrate on the killer. Overall, I had fun reading Spectacle. I’ll probably pick up the sequel if I come across it in my bookish wanderings.

Best Books Of July

1. The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman

2. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

3. The Hunger by Alma Katsu

Most-Viewed July Blog Posts

1. Top Ten Tuesday: Authors I’ve Read The Most

2. Top Ten Tuesday: Best Books Of 2020 (So Far)

3. Top Ten Tuesday: Books That Will Make You Happy

July Bestsellers

Here are the books that people bought on Amazon or Book Depository last month after seeing them on Read All The Things! (Don’t worry, the link-tracking robots only tell me which books people are buying, not who is buying them. That would be creepy.)

1. Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover

2. Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

3. Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo

July Life Snapshots

1. Sprints, with apologies to my Twitter followers. In July, I rediscovered my love of book sprints on Twitter. If you’ve never done a sprint, a bunch of people read books at the same time and quickly answer questions about what they’re reading. I participated in sprints every day for a week. Sorry if I flooded your timeline with nonsense. (↓ Here's an example of the quality content I posted during a sprint. ↓)

2. I still haven’t punched my computer! Since lockdown stole kickboxing from me, I started at-home kickboxing workouts. I just search YouTube for kickboxing workouts, push play, and hope no disasters happen. My house is not ideal for kickboxing because there’s not a lot of space. I’m very impressed that I haven’t accidentally punched the computer yet. *Pats self on back.* Cross your fingers that my computer (and furniture and body) continue to survive this adventure.

3. You’ve insulted my face, dear sir! I wore my mermaid tail mask to walk the dog. An old man rolled his eyes at me and said to his wife, “They’re forcing the fish to wear masks now?” Um, excuse me? Everyone looks fabulous in rainbow fish scales. You don’t know what you’re missing.

4. Attack of the sex robots, with apologies to my blog readers. I don’t know why, but this blog keeps getting swarmed by sex robots who leave very saucy comments 😳. I’m sorry if any of these comments have offended your sensibilities. I swear I’m deleting as fast as I can! Robots, if you’re listening, this is a book blog. We don’t offer those kinds of services here!

Wayward Googlers

Here are a few amusing Google searches that led people to Read All The Things! last month. I’m sorry to the unfortunate souls who ended up here instead of finding what they were Googling for.

“Rain sounds for sleep.” I use an app called Ultimate Sleep App: The Ultimate Sleep Solution. It has rain, music, and many other noises. You can even mix-and-match noises to create your own blend. I can confirm that it’s excellent at drowning out the depressing racket of your Fox-News-obsessed neighbors and their massive outdoor TV.
 

“Books with flaps.” Check out my Best Books of 2020 post. Baby Brooklyn has recommendations! She’s an expert in the "books with flaps" genre.

All The Things!

Number of unread books on my TBR shelf = 53 books.

I’m currently reading = The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman.

What did you do in July?