books Here are the 16 books I read in July. I had a lot of really good books in this mix. And some really stunning covers! My final book this month was book #100 for the year!

Check out my various pages for ⭐️ ratings of these books:

I hope you find something that looks interesting to you. Below are a few notes on the books this month.

Total books for the year: 100

  1. 📱 Lights by Brenna Thummler - I loved this series so much. This series opened my eyes to graphic novels and I have been reading some others thanks to these. I loved the characters, their stories, the ghosts and all of the topics that were touched on. I can’t recommend these enough!
  2. 🎧 How To Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley - I picked this for our book club pick and I was so excited about it. It had good reviews and sounded fun, but when I started listening to it, I was distracted, bored and completely uninterested. Thankfully, the ladies at book club enjoyed this one, but I’ll definitely be pickier about my book picks from now on.
  3. 🎧 Caught Up by Navessa Allen - A couple friends had been reading this series, so I read along with them. These are dark reads and not something I would readily recommend to just anyone. I liked the characters in the first book better than this one, but this story was maybe a little better. Interested to see what book 3 brings.
  4. 🎧 The Love Haters by Katherine Center - I can’t say enough good things about Katherine Center and her books. She never fails me. These are lovely and delightful reads with HEA and I will read everything she writes. This was a cute story, funny, and lovable. If you want a great summer read, pick this one up!
  5. 🎧 We’ll Prescribe You A Cat by E. Madison Shimoda & Syou Ishida - I came across this one and I have enjoyed other books of this style that have been translated. I thought this was such a cute idea. Each chapter/section/story was filled with different characters and quirky cats. I love that each situation was fixed with a cat. There’s a little mystery mixed in as well. I just saw recently that there is a seqeul coming out, too.
  6. 🎧 Orbital by Samantha Harvey - This was good, but also a little too technical, I guess. I didn’t connect very deeply with this one. It was supposed to be short and contemplative, but while I loved the premise and idea and overall book, the smaller details weren’t my jam. Beautiful cover, though!
  7. 📱 Story Of My Life by Lucy Score - I LOVED this book. Lucy Score is known to be quite steamy and there were a few parts, but the book overall was not that. It was lengthy, but I read it in record speed (for me). The wittiness of this book was perfection. A book in a book of sorts. It was so cleverly done and I am sad I need to wait for more in the series. I hope the others are just as good, but this one might not be topped because of the uniqueness. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️!!! Definitely one of my favorites this year.
  8. 📖📱👩‍👧‍👦 Operation Do-Over by Gordon Korman - I read this with two of my kids. It was supposed to be a fun “book club” book for us this summer, but my youngest took a long time to get into it and my middle got bored waiting for him. We eventually finished it….with some bribing and pressuring, but my 5th grader enjoyed it. There was some time travel, funny scenes and some drama.
  9. 🎧 Problematic Summer Romance by Ali Hazelwood - I will read everything Ali Hazelwood writes. She is one of the few authors that make female characters in STEM. And I feel like I enjoyed some of her earlier ones more because the stories were more STEM-based. Now I feel like they are more romance with a side of STEM. I also didn’t even realize this was book 2 with some minor characters from the first one being the leads in this one.
  10. 📱 Speak Up! By Rebecca Burgess - I had checked this one out for my kids and thought they would get a kick out of it. But neither of the younger ones were, so I read it. I loved the mental health aspect with the FMC having autism and all the struggles she has and all of her strength and how she worked through hard things. Her best friend was LGBTQ and they were a fun character I wish we maybe could have read a little more about. They went to a different school than the FMC and I wish they hadn’t. I loved the colors of this one and would definitely gift this one and add it to my shelves!
  11. 🎧 Someone You Can Build A Nest In by John Wiswell - I have no idea where I came across this one. It was a bit strange, but also quite entertaining. There was shape-shifting, love, death, LGBTQ representation and was so wonderfully weird!
  12. 🎧 The Survivor Wants To Die At The End by Adam Silvera - I was excited for the next book in this series. I liked the story, but at almost 18 hours long, I felt like it was a bit drawn out. I never know what could have been cut out, but it just felt like a lot….then it ended on a cliffhanger. So you don’t even get a satisfying ending which might have made me less annoyed by the length. :)
  13. 🎧 Murder By Memory by Olivia Waite - This was a novella I found. I have been in a bit of a space-magic-STEM-weird book kick. This was only 2 hours and was packed with twists. It was a little confusing at times, but was an entertaining, quick read.
  14. 🎧 Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent - I came across this one to complete a book challenge. It was just weird. Twisted, dark, and just overall kind of dramatic. I was hoping to love it, but it really didn’t do much for me. Possibly because of the accents in the audiobook, but I just didn’t love it like I’d hoped.
  15. 🎧 Crying In H Mart by Michelle Zauner - I had come across this one somewhere and wasn’t really sure what to expect. I have found I enjoy memoirs more when they are about someone I don’t know. I never seem to enjoy the celebrity memoirs. But this was endearing and pretty sad, but also heartwarming. I really enjoyed it.
  16. 📱👩‍👧‍👦 Freddy vs School by Neill Cameron - I picked this up on a whim at a moving sale at a bookstore. My 5th grader LOVED it. He read it faster than I’ve seen him read a book in a while. I didn’t really anticipate that I would be reading it with him, but he asked me to. It was a cute book about a robot who is trying to learn and be more human-like, but his robot lasers and boosters are just so fun to use. :) Silly and fun and a hit with kids.

– Book Key –
🎧 - Audiobook
📖 - paperback/hardcover
📱 - ebook
👩‍👧‍👦 - read with kids

Andi

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