Here is my #bookspin list for July! I‘m really excited for everything on my list. Two of the books I already finished today, so maybe they‘ll be on the same row once the board comes out tomorrow!

I tagged one of the books on my list because I am only an hour into the audiobook and I‘m loving it so far. Tom Hanks, please read all my books to me!

I‘m so glad I stuck with this one, and now I need the sequel! For the first few chapters on audio, I was really not liking this. But as soon as I switched to print the characters really came to life. I love how much of a badass Evie is while also being cute and lusting over her boss. And the Villain‘s inner monologue is really cute too. The book is campy and fun and at times gross (just for shock value) and has heart. 💗 But what a cliffhanger!

Ha, what a fun graphic novel! Katie wants to go to summer camp with her friends, so she raises money by doing odd jobs in her apartment building. When she starts cat sitting (for her neighbor‘s 200+ cats!) things get zany, especially when super heroes get involved. I would read more of this series. 😋

I went with this one for my July #botm because I‘ve heard great things! It sounds like a book I‘ve read before but we‘ll see how this author covers that topic. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Very interesting! I‘m glad I read this book as I didn‘t know much about sociopathy.

I‘m glad I finally read one of Hazelwood‘s books! I liked the academia setting and a lot of the banter. The FMC annoyed me in some ways but overall I thought it was a good book.

Oh, Phoebe and Marigold. 💗💗💗

I thought this was good but not great. A middle schooler named Gemma who is 6 feet tall struggles to fit in at school and is shouldering taking care of her family since her mom left. She and her brother really love baseball, and that‘s at the heart of this graphic novel. I didn‘t really connect to the characters, and the whole thing was a bit bleak. But not bad. 🤷🏻‍♀️

What an unusual, nuanced graphic novel. There‘s nothing juvenile or simple about this story. No easy morals or cliches. It‘s a story about a teenager named Harriet whose family has just moved, and how she spends the days while her parents are working multiple jobs. The circumstances are revealed slowly and even at the end there is a lot that isn‘t spelled out. I would recommend this for adults as well as teens. Very thought provoking.

It‘s always a good time for a little Phoebe and her Unicorn. 💗💗💗 Just such a delight.

As much as I love Everything, Everything and The Sun is Also a Star, this book didn‘t do it for me. For 75% of the book it was slow and one dimensional. The preachy main character annoyed me and the plot was stagnating. Then at the end it suddenly took a surreal, horrifying turn which certainly woke me up but was completely out of sync with the rest of the book. I think there was a good book in this idea, but I wasn‘t a fan of the execution.

Thanks for hosting this fun giveaway! I saw reviews of the tagged book on Litsy and was intrigued by its comparison to Legends and Lattes, so I would love to check it out! 💗💗
@TheSpineView #twofortuesday #tuesdaygiveaway

Oh Anthony Horowitz, how I love your books! 😋 I just consistently enjoy his mysteries and this one, the 4th in the Hawthorne series, was no exception. I do think it‘s best to read them in order for context, but that just means you have more to enjoy if you‘re new to the series! 💗

I expected to love this- especially as someone wanting to open a bookstore!- but I was so disappointed. I felt like there was a heavy curtain hanging between me and the characters, and I just couldn‘t connect to them. The writing felt so stiff and removed. Maybe it was the translation? I just don‘t know. A lot of it seems heavy handed or moralistic about the topic of how to live a good life. It was just boring and flat.

This was cute! It was a very slow burn, as others have pointed out. I liked it overall!

I acquired these 3 lovelies over the weekend! The Stacy Willingham is due to the generosity of @ImperfectCJ and their #clearmyshelvesgiveaway! Sooo nice! And the other 2 I bought at a great indie bookstore in Lancaster, PA called Pocket Books. Love that place. The owners do a great job of recommending books, and both of these were among their Pride Picks. I‘m almost done with my job so I can read these guilt-free! Almost… 😋

This book was bleak. Just relentless. I wasn‘t a fan but I did finish it to see what happened. Now I feel really depressed! I need a palette cleanser!

Hmm. This felt a little like a bait and switch, like the story started as one thing and then veered off course in a less interesting direction. It wasn‘t a home run for me, though I usually like this author a lot.

A friend just gave this to me as a congrats-on-leaving-your-job-to-start-a-bookstore present! It looks so awesome! She and I have similar reading tastes. Has anyone read it?

Oof. This was well done but disturbing! About a third of the way in I almost closed the book because some of the scenes were too much for me, but I ended up reading on through to the end. I need a palate cleanser after this, like a rom com.

I was unimpressed. The book started off holding my attention but then veered off into mediocrity. I don‘t want to be overly harsh, but the plot became really far fetched and also overly saccharine. And the main character is super into cars, which is fine, but the narration often read like an extended car chase. I just wasn‘t a fan.

#BOTM books are live!!!

I‘m surprised because it‘s 2 days early, but yay! I‘m going with the Peter Swanson thriller. I always like him and wasn‘t tempted by the other choices this month. What are y‘all picking?

As a big fan of Laurie Frankel, my verdict for this one is: good but not great. Frankel always writes about family in a compelling way, but I found her to be more didactic than usual (especially the end). And while I loved the witty writing style, it felt like everyone- adults, kids, etc- had the same voice. It was sort of like Aaron Sorkin (💗) dialogue: clever and snappy but a little too perfect to feel believable.

Fun! I read, liked, and didn‘t really remember the first Ffion Morgan book, and this one was good too! About a morally bereft and totally believable reality tv show that involves contestants living together on a mountain in Wales… that happens to be in Ffion‘s town. Then crimes happen! I wish I knew how to pronounce the Welsh phrases in my head!

A friend recommended the tagged series to me and it will kick off my Bookspin reading list for June! I‘m really excited about all the books on the list… which means that I will probably want to change it in about half an hour. 😋 Right @BennettBookworm ?

Bookmark is part of a bookish pack. This one says Books are Yoga for the Mind.

I‘ve been working on a big life change for several months… next month I‘m leaving my career in education after 19 years to open a bookstore!!!

I‘m soooo excited! I‘ve been taking classes so I‘m now a “certified frontline bookseller,” shadowing bookstore owners, and doing a deep dive into small business ownership. The store is called Bookish Notions and I‘m working to secure a storefront in southeastern PA! I‘m looking at Ambler at the moment. ⬇️

It had been years since I last read or watched this play, and I wanted to revisit it after reading Tom Lake. I‘m glad I did! There‘s a lot to make you think no matter what age you go back to it. 💗 Personally I was happy to have read Tom Lake first but I think if you‘re not at all familiar with Our Town you‘ll want to read the play first.

So beautiful in its seemingly simple premise: a mom telling her 3 grown daughters a story of her youth while they‘re all home at the family farm during the pandemic. I loved it so much. A bookseller put this in my hands and I‘m glad she did! 💗

It took me a good while to get through, but I‘m glad I read this book. It seems like it‘s the origin of dark academia as a genre, and I‘ve wanted to read it for a long time. The prose is rich and the story of a group of Classics students at college is both bizarre and mundane. It reminded me of Brideshead Revisited even though this was written in the 1990s, with its intense secretive friendships, sibling relationships, class differences, etc.

I‘m excited for my April #botm box! I got the new Sally Hepworth (I always really like her books) and added Familia with my birthday month credit! Now I just need to prioritize reading a bit more on a daily basis. 💗

This started out slow for me- I‘m not used to reading non-fiction- but quickly held my attention. The anonymous author lays out a very cogent and well-substantiated argument for how the British justice system is broken, using examples from his time as a barrister. It‘s scary and convincing.

Ooooh, really good! This was a big cut above your average thriller. Things are not what they seem and I was completely absorbed in figuring out the truth about this small group of neighbors. I‘ve read a few books by Lisa Jewell but this is my new favorite!

This was so much more than I expected it to be. It was a really immersive, absorbing look at the intertwining lives of a group of theater kids at a Manhattan Quaker high school in 2001-2002. Strong themes of queerness in many forms, sex, art, love, friendship, obsession, control, and more. I recommend it!

Oof. This book was a gut punch. I‘m glad I read it, but I don‘t see the humor that other reviews seemed to talk about. It was about the unraveling of a woman in her 40s- her body, her marriage, her relationship with her daughter. I found it hard to read at times and wish I had borrowed it from the library rather than buying it.

I read this book based on the reviews of @Soubhiville and @AvidReader25 who picked it up based on Ann Patchett‘s recommendation. 😋 It was very absorbing. The catalyst is a court case but it‘s about the lives of the jurors during and after the trial. Very interesting book that packs a lot of emotions about grief and desire within a short page count.

While visiting some family in Westchester, NY I went to Split Rock Books in Cold Springs. What a great shop! They were really nice and gave me some book suggestions, including these 2. Tom Lake was on my radar already (from #auldlangspine) but I hadn‘t been focused on The Berry Pickers. I‘m excited to try it!

This got me out of my reading slump and then I turned back to the beginning and read it again. Detailed expressive panels and a story about a queer disabled teen attending her first comic convention with her supportive, geeky mom. I loved it all! I get the sense this was published first in Australia and just came out in the US? It was on display at my indie bookstore as having won an ALA award (Stonewall) this year.

I still say that The Silent Patient is his best book by far, but I liked this one well enough. The narration style was fun, with the narrator talking directly to the reader a lot and teasing with other murder mystery references. And the cast of characters held my interest. It was a solid mystery with a vivid setting on a Greek island. #botm

Zoe‘s eye matches the one on the cover! 😋 That was a happy coincidence.

This book started off slow for me and I felt there were too many random characters throughout. BUT that said, it was really heartwarming and sweet too. My family read this together as a mark up book, and I loved seeing my parents‘ comments written throughout! It was so cute to see their reactions to the story. 💗💗

I was eagerly anticipating the BOTM announcement, but when it came I was disappointed. None of the main books jumped out at me this time, though there are several add-ons that I like. But it‘s ok! I‘m going to lean into the books already on my shelves this month (including some #botm backlog!). 💗 I‘m still excited to see what everyone chose!

Thanks for the #AuldLangSpine recommendation @Librarybelle ! I‘m glad I read this one. I started by listening to it on audio and really didn‘t like the narrators, but it was better when I switched to print. This felt like somewhere between a cozy and a mystery to me, and while parts of the plot seemed rushed or glossed over, I liked the characters and the baking competition. I had fun reading it!

I finished this book last night after flying through the last hundred pages, and I‘m still processing it. My overall impression was that it was sooo creative and playful and just clever, and I was absorbed completely. I also have this nagging feeling that I missed something? Like if you asked me to explain the upshot, I would struggle? I‘m inclined to blame myself for that since I started and stopped more than I usually do. So it‘s a clear pick!

I finished another #AuldLangSpine rec from @Librarybelle and it was superb! I‘m not that into music but through the lens of this pseudo memoir I felt like I was. Opal and Sunny really felt like 3 dimensional people and we got to know them over many years. The racism and other societal problems at the heart of the book were portrayed vividly. I liked the writing style. Overall, I can see why this was on a lot of people‘s lists from last year!

This book felt like a hug for my brain. All the praise I‘d heard was true for this simple but deeply resonant tale of a tea monk and a robot. I borrowed this from the library but definitely want to buy it for myself. Some of the passages just really spoke to me, you know?

Work closed a bit early and they‘ve already announced a late opening due to weather, so I‘m cozied up and ready to read! 💗💗

It was fun being back with these characters again! I really like Ellie, our protagonist, and her old and new friends. Her estranged dad and his new family play a nice part in this story too. I definitely recommend this series to middle grade readers!

Lots of love for this touching and fun multi-holiday story. I totally recommend it! The complex family relationships, the new friendship between the two women, and the budding romances were all believable and richly portrayed. Above all, I wish this town existed in real life because it seems perfect! 💗

This is a spot-on suggestion from my #auldlangspine partner @Librarybelle and there are more lined up next! @monalyisha

What a great first book of 2024! 💗💗💗💗💗 I love the Heartstopper universe and in my opinion it keeps getting better and better. Lots of ways that Nick and Charlie grow in this volume and the friends and family have important roles too. Oseman says that volume 6 will conclude the series (maybe that‘s common knowledge but it was news to me?) and it‘ll be sad to see it end!

The tagged book serves a double purpose here: it‘s a book I‘ve had on my own shelves for a while AND it summarizes this post! I love @Jas16 ‘s idea to do a #24in2024 challenge and I‘ve identified my books. I only included books I still genuinely want to read, and I‘m excited to get started!

I had a great reading month in December, scoring 4 bingos for #bookspinbingo by reading 17 books and bailing on 3. Two weeks of break will do that! Some favorites were Bookshops and Bonedust, The Christmas Appeal, and Hello Beautiful.