It’s time to wrap up everything I read in August! But what about what I’ve read the rest of the year so far? Am I going to write wrap-ups about those books? Absolutely not. If you want to know how I feel about anything I read prior to August, you’ll have to check out my Storygraph. (By the way, I no longer use Goodreads and am exclusively using Storygraph to track my reading.)
Anyway, I had a really good reading month in August. Sure, my reading pace has slowed way down from what it used to be, but the lowest rating I gave was 4.5 stars. I also read perhaps my favorite book of the year so far. I read four books in total: two horror, one historical fiction, and one fantasy. I also DNF’d one book.
So, uh, let’s get into it then, shall we?
Blood on her Tongue by Johanna Van Veen
From Storygraph, “The Netherlands, 1887. Lucy’s twin sister Sarah is unwell. She refuses to eat, mumbles nonsensically, and is increasingly obsessed with a centuries-old corpse recently discovered on her husband’s grand estate. The doctor has diagnosed her with temporary insanity caused by a fever of the brain. To protect her twin from a terrible fate in a lunatic asylum, Lucy must unravel the mystery surrounding her sister’s condition, but it’s clear her twin is hiding something. Then again, Lucy is harboring secrets of her own, too.
Lucy soon comes to suspect that something is trying to possess her beloved sister. Or is it madness? As Sarah changes before her very eyes, Lucy must reckon with the dark, monstrous truth, or risk losing her forever.
Then, the worst happens. Sarah’s behavior takes a turn for the strange. She becomes angry… and hungry.”
I read Van Veen’s debut “My Darling Dreadful Thing” last year and liked it but didn’t love it. However, this novel is proof that Van Veen is growing and improving as an author. This book has bog bodies, lesbianism, sisterhood, and more. That said, the middle dragged a little and felt that the dynamic between Lucy and Sarah/Not-Sarah could’ve been fleshed out a little more. I also felt this section was a bit tell-not-showy.
On the other hand, this book hit on a specific intrusive thought of mine that really dialed up the horror for me. I also felt the ending was well foreshadowed and had great payoff. Overall, this was a pretty good read.
Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
From Storygraph, “Joan Goodwin has been obsessed with the stars for as long as she can remember. Thoughtful and reserved, Joan is content with her life as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University and as aunt to her precocious niece, Frances. That is, until she comes across an advertisement seeking the first women scientists to join NASA’s Space Shuttle program. Suddenly, Joan burns to be one of the few people to go to space.
Selected from a pool of thousands of applicants in the summer of 1980, Joan begins training at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilots Hank Redmond and John Griffin, who are kind and easy-going even when the stakes are highest; mission specialist Lydia Danes, who has worked too hard to play nice; warm-hearted Donna Fitzgerald, who is navigating her own secrets; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer, who can fix any engine and fly any plane.
As the new astronauts become unlikely friends and prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined. In this new light, Joan begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her place in the observable universe.
Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, everything changes in an instant.”
I have read a TJR book since being disappointed by “Daisy Jones & the Six” back in insert-the-year-that-book-came-out-here. I only picked this one up because I needed a palette cleanser after reading a few horror books and I’d heard good things. My expectations were not high.
This is the best book I’ve read so far this year.
Truly, this is TJR’s magnum opus. I cried so many times while reading this book. I also giggled and kicked my feet. The pain and dread were palpable, and I related to Joan and Vanessa’s struggles as a lesbian teacher in a conservative area. Their romance was incredible. I also adored Joan’s relationship with her niece, Frances. I loved just reading about NASA too. I thought the feminist points were occasionally too on the nose, but that hardly took away from my experience. I’m so glad I gave TJR another try.
This Ravenous Fate by Hayley Dennings
From Storygraph, “It’s 1926 and reapers, the once-human vampires with a terrifying affliction, are on the rise in New York. But the Saint family’s thriving reaper-hunting enterprise holds reign over the city, giving them more power than even the organized criminals who run the nightclubs. Eighteen year-old Elise Saint, home after five years in Paris, is the reluctant heir to the empire. Only one thing weighs heavier on Elise’s mind than her family obligations: the knowledge that the Harlem reapers want her dead.
Layla Quinn is a young reaper haunted by her past. Though reapers have existed in America for three centuries, created by New World atrocities and cruel experiments, Layla became one just five years ago. The night she was turned, she lost her parents, the protection of the Saints, and her humanity, and she’ll never forget how Elise Saint betrayed her.
But some reapers are inexplicably turning part human again, leaving a wake of mysterious and brutal killings. When Layla is framed for one of these attacks, the Saint patriarch offers her a deal she can’t refuse: to work with Elise to investigate how these murders might be linked to shocking rumors of a reaper cure. Once close friends, now bitter enemies, Elise and Layla explore the city’s underworld, confronting their intense feelings for one another and uncovering the sinister truths about a growing threat to reapers and humans alike.”
So… I DNF’d this book at 18%. But I want to emphasize that I don’t think this book is bad. It’s just a specific brand of YA that I’m simply too old to enjoy. A younger reader (i.e., the target audience) would get a lot more out of this book than me.
The Library at Hellebore by Cassandra Khaw
From Storygraph, “The Hellebore Technical Institute for the Gifted is the premier academy for the dangerously powerful: the Anti-Christs and Ragnaroks, the world-eaters and apocalypse-makers.
Hellebore promises redemption, acceptance, and a normal life after graduation. At least, that’s what Alessa Li is told when she’s kidnapped and forcibly enrolled.
But there’s more to Hellebore than meets the eye. On graduation day, the faculty go on a ravenous rampage, feasting on Alessa’s class. Only Alessa and a group of her classmates escape the carnage. Trapped in the school’s library, they must offer a human sacrifice every night, or else the faculty will break down the door and kill everyone.
Can they band together and survive, or will the faculty eat its fill?”
So, unpopular opinion… this book was absolutely repulsive, and I enjoyed every second of it. I’ve wanted to try Cassandra Khaw’s books for a while but have been hesitant because I’ve heard middling to bad things about them. Having read the reviews of this book after finishing it, that is still true. But not for me. I love this disgusting, horrifying book.
The Last Soul Among Wolves by Melissa Carusso
From Storygraph, “All Kembral Thorne wants is to finish her maternity leave in peace. But when her best friend asks for help, she can’t say no, even if it means a visit to a run-down mansion on an isolated island for a will reading. She arrives to find an unexpected reunion of her childhood friends—plus her once-rival, now-girlfriend Rika Nonesuch, there on a mysterious job. Then the will is read, and everything goes sideways.
Eight potential heirs, half of them Kem’s oldest friends.
Three cursed relics.
The rules: one by one, the heirs will die.
The prize for the lone survivor: A wish. And wishes are always bad business.
To save their friends, Kem and Rika must race against the clock and descend into other realities once more. But the mansion is full of old secrets and new schemes, and soon the game becomes far more dangerous—and more personal—than they could have imagined.”
I read and loved the first book in this series, “The Last Hour Between Worlds,” back in April and immediately preordered the sequel. These books are so fun and remind me of the old days of reading YA, except for adults this time. The Echoes are such a cool concept, and I love these characters. I think I like the first one a little more, but they’re still both popcorn reads in the best way.
So, how was your reading in August? What was your favorite read? Your least favorite? Let me know in the comments and I’ll see ya when I see ya!
Strange Storyteller 
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