June saw a decent amount of travel between Andy and me, which helped me read a solid 5 books. One weekend we went backpacking with his parents and another I went to visit my parents. Even when you’re not in school and don’t have kids to force you onto the school schedule, summer still seems like the right time of year to travel!
The other excitement in June was that the movie version of Me Before You came out and I conscripted my book club into going to see it. I devoured the book last March and said “it’ll suck you in and then punch you in the gut,” which is pretty much what the movie does, too, except I was ready for it. One book club member who tends to have different taste in books than I do said, “I don’t know what you’ve done to me–I couldn’t stop reading this book!” I thought the movie was well done, and of course it made me cry.
So! On to the books.
This was recommended by another Twitter friend to help me through last month’s reading slump. It was of a good ilk to do that, but I can’t say I loved it. In general I like the southern murder mystery genre. Perhaps I was just missing too much context because I hadn’t fallen in love with Penn Cage through the character’s other books. I also tend to love books set in Mississippi, but I’m not as familiar with Natchez, so that was less exciting than normal as well.
Look, I told you last month I would probably end up reading the whole trilogy of these, so don’t act surprised. I think Born in Ice was my favorite of the three, mostly because I relate the most to Brianna’s personality and so fell the most in love with her suitor. I enjoyed how the third book kind of brought everything full circle, except it got into some Irish mysticism stuff that I had trouble buying into. All in all an enjoyable trilogy.
When I visited my college roommate Kimmie back in May, she could not stop talking about Outlander, both the books and the TV series. I wasn’t sure it sounded like something I’d be interested in, but the book was available from the library’s e-catalog one night when I was looking for something to start, so I decided to give it a try. Wow! I really enjoyed it. Fair warning in case this kind of thing bothers you, it was pretty racy in parts. I’m a little intimidated that there are now 8 more books of well over 500 pages each that I could read, but I suppose no one’s saying I have to be in a hurry about it. I can’t find the TV series included on any of my streaming services, but I may break down and buy a season at some point because I’m curious to see how they make the sex scenes approporiate!
I was 100% “meh” about this book. It was recommended by someone at work, and I specifically didn’t start it while Andy was out of town because I thought I would be freaked out by it, but I actually didn’t find it scary at all. Someone told me it was originally a short story that people convinced the author to expand into a full novel, and I think he would have been better off not having done so. It’s captured the public’s attention, though, and is being made into a movie, so what do I know?
I’ve yet to reallly hit summer beach read mode, but I AM going to the beach in August, so hit me up with your recommendations!!
