Booked Out July

How was your month in books? If you could use only one word or a phrase to describe June – what would it be?

✨ TANYA PATRICE ✨

My one word for the month would be Greedy. I read 7 … and a 1/2 … books which is a lot for me – and they were all so different. The genres included non-fiction, horror, romance, mystery, psychological thriller and contemporary.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Taylor Jenkins Reid and Long Shot (Hoops #1), Kennedy Ryan are my 2 faves this month.

Taylor Jenkins-Reid makes fictional characters and settings seem like real life events. That’s what I experienced with Daisy Jones and the Six, and that’s what The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo feels like too. This book brings back the old Hollywood glam vibe, and it’s a quick, engrossing read about the life of a movie star that had seven husbands.

Long Shot is a romance book but it’s really intense, deeply raw and emotional. This is not your traditional love story – although there are definitely elements of that present – but it also deals with some deeply painful issues like domestic abuse and rape. Be prepared to fall in love with the book, to cry and have your heart broken but then put back together again.

I also manged to read a non-fiction book about creativity – Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, Elizabeth Gilbert. This is note-worthy because I rarely read non-fiction, but this was a really timely read for me. Personally, I had been struggling during this time of isolation due to the global pandemic, but this book reminded me to embrace the “fun” in creativity. Creating should be done just for the sheer pleasure of it, and it takes practice – so it’s imperfect and messy. And this is what this blog space is to me – a fun, creative outlet where I get to share my joy of reading, and helps me practice opening up my mind to the universe.

🌞KIM🌞

My one word to describe July would be ‘distracted.’ My head has been all over the place with the stress of trying to decide how best to handle back to school for my kids and whether I should keep them home or not. The first two weeks of the month I didn’t read at all because I just could not focus. I finally realized that I needed to pick up a couple of shorter books to help get my back into the habit of reading every day.

I read Every Heart A Doorway, Seanan McGuire, which is only 173 pages and it was the perfect choice to get me back into books. This book was an interesting twist on an Alice in Wonderland type of books- only we meet children who have traveled to other lands, after they’ve come back and are living together in a boarding house. The book gets a bit gruesome as the children start getting murdered. I enjoyed the story and plan to pick up the next in the series.

I also listened to American Street, Ibi Zoboi on audio. I adored the character, Fabiola. I was so impressed with how fierce she was. The narration by Robin Miles is done so well! This is the first book I’ve listened to that she’s narrated and it’s also the first book by Ibi Zoboi that I’ve read. Definitely need to get my hands on more of both!

I also read…