May was a good month all around, since there's no more school for the summer and I found some good books, movies, and TV shows. I finally found another 5 star book and some neat graphic novel series. Let's just get into it!
Some of the standout graphic novels I read this month that all got 4/5 star ratings were Brawl of the Wild by Dav Pilkey, Exorsisters Vol. 1, Nancy Drew: The Palace of Wisdom, and Royal City Vol. 1. The most surprising of those was definitely Royal City. I just found it randomly on the Hoopla app and was sucked into the drama of this family from a small industrial town. I'll probably try to read the next two volumes in June. Also, after reading Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys as a kid, it was neat to read a graphic novel version of Nancy Drew solving mysteries. All of these had great art and were fun reads.
I watched The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants movies in May and finally got around to reading the books by Anna Brashares too. I read all five books of the series and didn't think they were well-done. The writing was cringey, and the characters were annoying. I gave the first four in the series 2/5 stars but the last one got a 1/5 rating because I was over them at that point. Continuing with the theme of YA books, I also read Two Can Keep a Secret by Karen M. McManus (3/5). It was a murder mystery where the killer reveal didn't surprise me at all. Still, it was enjoyable to read and better than her first book that I read last year, One of Us Is Lying. A couple other 3/5 star reads for me were The Last Stone by Mark Bowden and The Cold Dish by Craig Johnson. Apparently that second one is the book that the TV show Longmire is based off of. Just like Two Can Keep a Secret, it's a murder mystery that was predictable. It kind of dragged at times but I did like the main character Walt. The Last Stone was a somewhat interesting true crime, though it mostly focused on the interviews and interrogation techniques used on the suspect. A few that I didn't enjoy this month were The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey (1/5), The Library Book by Susan Orlean (1/5), and Dataclysm by Christian Rudder (2/5). They all were such a slog to get through. I did find one 5/5 star book: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. It was a romance novel about this fictional actress who wanted to give the story of her life to a journalist. I didn't know much going into it and probably preferred it that way. It was a quick read because of how well written and engrossing it was. I liked Evelyn as a character and found myself wanting to hear more about her life. I highly recommend it! It didn't read like any of the other romance novels I've read so don't let that deter you if you're not a romance person.
With another month down, I'm now at 160 for the year with 28 of those read this month. My unofficial goal for the rest of the year is to hit 365 books read. I'm ahead of my original goal of 200, so honestly at this point, I want to see if I could theoretically read a book a day. It's something that'd be neat to cross off my bucket list and never have to do again. We'll see if that ends up happening. Thanks for looking!
No comments:
Post a Comment