I hope you all enjoyed your Independence Day weekend! With the holiday behind us, I am back on the blog. Whew, that was quite a hiatus – and an unexpected one at that. Life forced me to reprioritize and give more focus to other areas for a while. But I’m here now and, though it may be a while before I post anywhere near as often as before, I will post as much as possible.
I read a few new releases in June, and I thought it’d be nice to highlight them here and also preview the month ahead. And by that I mean the month we are in, with it being July 5th already! Here is my June recap:
Every Exquisite Thing by Matthew Quick
5/5 stars
Okay, so this one was published on the last day of May. Close enough! Matthew Quick’s newest novel, his fourth Young Adult book, deals with so many familiar aspects of being a teenage girl on the cusp of adulthood: high expectations, resisting conformity, first love, and discovering the direction in which life is headed next. Almost every YA novel hits on one or more of these themes. What sets Quick’s writing apart is that he describes the feelings associated with these events in such a raw and honest way. It’s hard to believe these emotions are described by a 40-something-year-old male. He captures main character Nanette O’Hare’s overwhelm and disillusionment with thinking she knows people important to her but realizing she doesn’t really know them at all. We’ve all misunderstood, or been deeply misunderstood by, people in our lives who we thought we could trust. And we’ve all failed in one hundred different ways to meet others’ expectations for our lives. Matthew Quick is one of my favorite writers for this kind of relatability, and I will read anything he publishes. (Side note: Be sure to check out the book cover under the hardcover dust jacket. It’s as creative as the story Quick tells within.)
Release date: May 31 (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
The Girls by Emma Cline
3/5 stars
How far are you willing to go to belong? In this book, a young teenager grabs onto the metaphorical apple offered by the serpent and takes a huge bite out of it. In this case, the serpent is a late 1960s cult that quickly escalates in its odd behaviors. With Evie, Emma Cline describes a girl who is desperate to be liked and to be loved. Eve becomes obsessed with a girl she meets by chance during a difficult time in her life. She follows this girl, Suzanne, into a cult and gets pulled into more than she’s ready for. But she cannot stop all that is happening. With this story, Cline summarizes how things may seem one way in the moment but, over time, the rear view mirror of our lives can reveal very different realities. I was interested in the time period Cline described and looked forward to the suspense of a cult story, but The Girls fell short for me. It didn’t really set itself apart from other cult stories, real or fictional, in a meaningful way or offer a narrative that elicited any sort of strong emotional response in me as a reader.
Release date: June 14 (Random House)
Grunt by Mary Roach
4/5 stars
I am so curious about the complex beast that is the United States military, and I am so on board with Mary Roach’s approach to science. As a result, I was very excited about her take on military science. The inner workings of the armed forces organization might seem impenetrable, but Roach found her way in and provided insight on some of the craziest methods for keeping service members alive. This was my second Mary Roach read (following Gulp), and I am sure I will always appreciate her penchant for asking the questions that no one ever thinks of. Her books will always be on my radar.
Release date: June 7 (W.W. Norton & Company)
Below are some upcoming releases I’m hoping to read in July. Can you guess what new (to me) genre I’m planning to explore?
Disheveled Shelf 