I know, I know. I’ve promised you all like a dozen blog posts at this point, but I’ve been super busy. I was finishing up my internship at NIST in Maryland (I’m going to write a whole post about that because it was great), and then I was moving to Boston and starting work at Analytical Space. I’ve been unpacking and reorganizing myself, and I only just got groceries into my apartment. I’m low-key starting to stress about the 3L job search looming over me. Oh, and I’m writing again. Fiction. It’s very exciting (there’s a blog post coming on that too), and since it’s a big deal for me that I’m writing again, that takes precedent over blogging. I have written about half of each of the posts I’ve promised you all, so never fear, they are coming. In the meantime, I want to post about what I read in June before we get so far into July it becomes ridiculous.
I didn’t read as much in June as I have in the past few months. I only read ten books. (The fact that I’m saying “only” still kind of wows me). Since I was working full time, my main reading time was on the weekend, and this month I spent one weekend at my grandmother’s and flew home to New Hampshire for another weekend for my Dad’s birthday, and my mom came down to Maryland for my whole last week there, so I couldn’t very well walk around with headphones in all the time. As with the books I read in May, they were all audiobooks except one, because my reading time was mainly while I was doing other stuff. I did read one nonfiction book this month. And a couple of the books I read were a lot longer than I have been reading.
So here are the ten books I read in June. I continued the series I’ve been reading, started some new series, and read quite a few stand-alone books. As with my previous posts, I’m keeping these thoughts as spoiler-free as possible.
First, I read When Paris Went Dark: The City of Light Under German Occupation, 1940-1944 by Ronald C. Rossbottom. Anyone who knows me knows I’m a big fan of World War II books and I’m really interested in World War II history. Most of my research in the past has focused on World War II in Italy, since that’s what I did my senior honors thesis on. But I’m interested in all World War II history, and since I just spent a year studying French and learning about Parisian culture and identity, I was really excited to pick up this book. Unfortunately, it was a disappointment. It claimed to focus on the people of Paris, but it really focused on the city, and while some aspects of it were interesting, like how the Parisian apartment seemed to shrink as the war went on, the book glossed over important historical events, like the Holocaust, and that kind of rubbed me the wrong way. Also, it was just difficult to get through. I probably wouldn’t recommend this one, but it did inspire me to actually go back and start thinking about my senior honors thesis (the World War II Italy novella), which I haven’t touched since I graduated four years ago. I actually have some ideas I’m pretty excited about, and I’m going to start by reading as many World War II books as I can to put myself in the right mindset to dig into some revisions. So even though I wasn’t wild about this book, it did spark something in me, so I guess it was worth something.
Next, I read The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater. This is the first book in her Raven Cycle series, and I cannot wait to see what happens next. I fell in love with all the characters and the world, and the lirical writing and slow and steady pace of the book worked perfectly. Blue is fated to kill the first boy she kisses, but against her better judgment, she goes and becomes friends with a group of prep school boys on a magical quest. There’s an evil Latin teacher, plenty of ghosts, and a whole lot of excellent feelings. This book works really well as a standalone, too, so even if I hate the rest of the series, I definitely recommend this one.
Next, I read Lily’s Crossing by Patricia Reilly Giff. This was the first World War II book I could get out of the library after When Paris Went Dark. It’s a middle grade story about a young girl, Lily, left at home while her father goes off to fight in France, befriending a Hungarian refugee boy who left his sick sister in France. Together, they rescue a baby kitten, sneak into movies, and dream of crossing the ocean to find their family. This is a heartfelt book that does a great job depicting what it was like on the home front during World War II. I was also interested in it because my World War II Italy novella is also going to be a children’s book, though probably aimed at kids slightly older than Lily’s Crossing, and it’s good to know the market.
Since I was on this World War II reading spree, when I went home for the weekend I picked up my Braille copy of Number the Stars by Lois Lowry. This was the one Braille book I read this month. It’s about a ten-year-old Danish girl Annemarie and her family as they rescue their Jewish friends from the Nazi roundup in Denmark. I remember really enjoying this book when I was a kid, and I still really enjoyed it, though it’s definitely aimed younger than I would like. It glosses over a lot, and honestly I think what was actually happening could have been alluded to in a way that would have gone over kids’ heads but would have been recognizable to adults. Still, this book had so many great feels, and I would definitely recommend it.
I continued my World War II spree with Gingersnap by Patricia Reilly Giff. Like Lily’s Crossing, this was a book about the home front in World War Ii. Jayna’s big brother is her only family, and when he goes off to fight and becomes missing in action, Jayna sets out to find the long lost grandmother he mentioned before he left. This was another heartfelt book, and it also had characters who liked to cook, which I’m always a big fan of.
After that, I read Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. I read this in high school, and again in college. I adored it both times. This time, though I still loved Jane, I didn’t like Rochester as much. He’s a pretty huge jerk. And I don’t like the whole you did bad thing and so you go blind and you deserve it and when you repent you get your sight back thing. I don’t feel bad about spoiling this one a little because you’ve had over a hundred years to read it. I still enjoyed the book, but it wasn’t the one hundred percent wholehearted love of it that I had when I first read it in high school.
After Jane Eyre, I returned to the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan. I read the fourth book, The Battle of the Labyrinth. Annabeth finally gets to lead a quest, and it’s the story of Daedalus and Icarus. On the whole a really good book, though it does feel like a transition book in the series, ramping up for the grand finale. Which I am still waiting for from the library.
I read one more Patricia Reilly Giff book this month, Pictures of Hollis Woods. This is not a World War II book, but it is a book about a foster kid finding a family, which I am an absolute sucker for. This book was really just great. I loved the style, the pace, the colors of the writing. It just made me so happy.
I got back to Suzanne Collins’s Underland Chronicles series too with the fourth book, Gregor and the Marks of Secret. This was a solid book, but it’s definitely the weakest in the series so far. Sort of spoiler alert: It’s basically the holocaust, except with mice and rats. It’s so obviously the holocaust I kept expecting someone to reference World War II and be like, yeah, this is like that. Still, I love Gregor and his friends, and it’s definitely building up to a great conclusion.
Finally, I finished June with Life After Life by Kate Atkinson. This is another World War II book—sort of. I actually read it back in the fall of my senior year as part of my preparation for writing my honors thesis. But since I was in excruciating pain because of my exploding eyeball, I had literally no recollection of it. The premise is that whenever Ursula dies, she is reborn and has the opportunity to live her life again. We go through Ursula’s life over and over again, watching her make fatal errors, then the next time around realizing something terrible is about to happen and doing something different. Eventually, she figures out what’s going on and starts using her ability to try to stop the war and change history. This is a beautifully written book, and I love the premise and the look at all the possibilities choices can make. I would definitely recommend this book. I also discovered there’s a sequel to this one, and I’m looking forward to reading that too.
And that’s it for June. While I read less than I have been reading, I did reach a hundred books, completing my goal for 2018. Since 2018 is only halfway through, I increased my Goodreads reading challenge to 150. I didn’t double it because I have a really busy fall. But let it be said that I read a hundred books in six months holy cow!
So, have you read any of these books? What did you think of them?
Happy reading!