July is behind us. And it was a very busy July, as at least partially evidenced by the fact that I didn't even publish my June post until mid-July because things were busy (but more cos I forgot to actually hit Publish on a FULLY FINISHED PIECE that I made sure to finish early cos I knew July, especially early July, was going to be busy. ADHD? What is that?)
Busy month! We went on vacation, leaving July 4th. Unfortunately, we left our house in darkness because a crazy windstorm came through the night before, knocking out our power which didn't come back until we had already landed.* Then we were gone 11 days (Caribbean cruise & a couple days at Disney) before coming back to NJ and more storms and forest fire smoke and a tornado?? At least the temps dropped from a "feels like" of 115 degrees (around 46 Celsius for any international folks).
Oh there was also a birthday! The little monster is way less little and now he is 8 and honestly, I don't know how that happened either since I could have sworn he was 2 just a minute ago. To stretch things out, we did a small celebration with just the 3 of us (and some new Legos) on the day and are planning a future trip to Legoland (more Legos, obv) for more celebrating. We also had an anniversary (12 years, also WHAT) cos those things are the same day, though we just celebrated early on the boat because we all know what that day is really about now.
Why not talk about the books now? And hope I can get this post out before mid-August.
Number of books read
5
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
Like, Follow, Subscribe: Influencer Kids and the Cost of Childhood Online by Foresta Latifi
The Ex-Girlfriend Murder Club by Gloria Chao
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
I picked up this novel at a little bookstore on Bainbridge Island because a) I’d heard some good things about it b) it had a pretty design on the edges and c) what, am I going to go to a bookstore and NOT get a book, especially one that sort of takes place in the area? And then it sat on my shelf for a while because that’s what happens with books. Finally, a friend mentioned it with some good things to say and I decided to finally give it a try. And my friend was absolutely right, this was fantastic. Tova is living alone in a small town a couple hours outside of Seattle, spending her evenings as the cleaner of a small aquarium. Her husband passed away and her son Erik went missing 30 years earlier and her friends are worried about her at that job. But Tova likes the work and she likes the Pacific octopus, Marcellus, whom she forms a bond with after finding him roaming the aquarium at night. There are chapters from Marcellus's POV (not too many, just the right amount and honestly my fav parts) voicing general distain for humans except Tova and wanting to help her understand what happened to her son. The story is a bit slow, not in a way that's hard to get into by any means, but in a "Oh man, I'm more than a quarter of the way through the book and still feel like I'm in the intros but this is lovely, not a complaint, more a comment" type thing (that is the monologue going through my end at that point, anyway.) It was sweet and hopeful and I loved.
Rating: 4.85 stars
A friend recommended this to me about a year ago and then within the last few months I feel like the books are coming up constantly in my various feeds (so kudos to friend for being ahead of the curve) and during a recent Book Store Crawl I picked up a copy of the book and brought it with me on vacation. Where to start with this book? Because everything you've heard is right. It's nuts and it's fun and it's also upsetting at times. I'm sure if you are a fan of RPG, D&D stuff, there is more here to love that frankly, I'm sure went over my head but I didn't mind. One night the titular Carl is out trying to coax his ex-girlfriend's Cat (Princess Donut) out of a tree when suddenly everyone indoors is killed and everyone outside is herded into a dungeon for a televised death match (think Hunger Games or Running Man) and is treated like an RPG game, gathering loot, grinding & leveling up, winning achievements and of course fighting bosses and getting to the next level. There is a lot of detail there which, I have a feeling, if I were to listen to as an audiobook would get tedious, but here I enjoyed. There is humor (some immature, some dark) but also moments that stop the humor and were more upsetting than I thought they would be. (Sporadic reminders of how many people started in the Dungeon, and how many are left, some of the bosses and larger implications for the world). The book is the start of a series and very much not a standalone story. I'm not sure I would buy the other books but I am already on my library's waitlist for book 2.
Rating: 4 stars
A look into the lives of influencer families, in particular the children, what is it like for these kids, what are the ethnical implications for this type of content and what should be done? Latifi interviews experts in psychology, influencer parents themselves as well as a few children to help understand what is it like to have every moment captured, to always (or nearly always) be performing and the motivations for going down this path in the first place. She writes a very even look that takes into accounts the benefits, the children (yes, even older ones) who like creating content as well as all of the downsides (there are so many downsides). I can't say I follow many (any?) family vloggers or family influencers (the few parenting accounts I do come across tend to be more humorous and don't show the kids at all), so I certainly come down more on a side of "This is bad", as I'm sure do most of the audience who would pick up this book, and you'll get your fill of voyeurism here, while at the same time getting a POV from some of these influencers themselves as to why they do it (as contradicting as some of those reasons and justifications may be).
Rating: 4 stars
Cozy lil murder story about 3 women who all find out they've been seeing the same guy, band together to get revenge, and then have to solve his murder before they go down for it. It's a light hearted story, in the vein of Dial A for Aunties (although, sorry, that one is much better), with some sweet moments like the main character Kathryn Hu finding friendship in unlikely places (you know, her boyfriend's other girlfriends). The podcast host changing her format to true crime to try to investigate the girls was a fun turn. The good parts were juuuuust enough to make me not mind (so much) the less-than-good parts, like the romance between Kat and "Detective McHottie" or some plot bits I can't get into without spoilers. I rolled my eyes a number of times but also, when the audiobook ended, I thought "That was a solid 3 star read and I'll probably check out the other books in the Hu Done It series eventually". (Also I almost never think of books in terms of their star rating till I'm at this point writing about them, but this was v middle of the road where not great but enough entertaining stuff to make up for the others.)
Rating: 3 stars
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
The birthday boy has discovered Harry Potter. Sometimes he listens to the audiobooks while falling asleep. Recently we started reading the books some nights and we recently finished this one. I won't say much about it because really, what is there to say at this point? (If you want to see my thoughts there was a WHOLE readalong done). I will say, I have had some fun nitpicking details and I have brought the boy over to the side that Quidditch is a dumb sport because the whole Seeker/Snitch thing makes no sense for a sport (but lots of sense if you want an easy way for your hero to be the game winner without doing to much sports work).
Rating: 4 stars
I was also in the middle of listening to Yesteryear when we went on vacation. Unfortunately, I found I had less "audiobook listening time" than paperback time, and the book got automatically returned to the library before I could finish. I am back on the waitlist but it will probably be a couple months before I get it again.
Total pages read
1,716
Fiction
80%
Female authors
80%
US authors
80%
BIPOC authors
20%
Rereads
20%
Format
audiobook: 40%
paperback: 40%
ebook: 20%
Where'd I get the book
Library: 60%
Indie: 40%
Decades published
2020s: 80%
1990s: 20%
Resolution reads
40%
The Ex-Girlfriend Murder Club is by an Asian-American author
Harry Potter is obv by a UK author and also written before 2000
*And we were very fortunate because our power came back within 24 hours as a bunch of houses in our town were out for almost a week. All we really lost was a fridge of a food that was partially empty cos we knew we were going on vacation. My brother, a champ, stopped by the house to make sure once the power was back everything was fine and turned on/off some things that we forgot/couldn't get to while the power was out.
