This month, I made it a priority to improve the quality of my reading. First, I went to renew my library card. That means more ebooks and audiobooks for me (provided I get myself on the waitlist ASAP). Second, I bought myself a salt lamp (just like ten years after the trend). I was reading with one when staying at my parents’ house and it made reading super soothing. So with these two things at the ready, I’m ready to share what I read this June.
The Dressmaker by Rosalie Ham • ★★☆☆☆
I am a sucker for any story about dressmakers, seamstresses, textile artists and the like. If the protagonist wields a needle, I am in.
But I just could not get into this book. I will admit that the ending was very satisfying (aren’t all revenge plots?), but getting there felt long and tedious.
Meet Me at the Cupcake Café by Jenny Colgan • ★★☆☆☆
After reading The Bookshop on the Corner last month, I felt compelled to give another Jenny Colgan book a try. The bookshop book was sweet, easy to listen to and was the perfect amount of fluff.
Meet Me at the Cupcake Café was perhaps just a little too fluffy for me, though. I didn’t find myself liking the characters very much. I found them to be a little flat and pretty dull. If you’re really into British books about small bakeries, by all means, go for it. But I won’t be picking up any more books in this series.
The Lost Village by Camilla Sten • ★★★☆☆
Oooh I love a good scary book. I find I read them the fastest and it does feel good to sit at home and read all day.
Right away this book intrigued me when I saw it on some “Coming Soon” lists. A filmmaker travels to a rural Swedish town that was suddenly abandoned 50 years prior. No one knows exactly what happened and how the population disappeared overnight. He goal is to get to the bottom of the story, starting with letters here grandmother—a former resident—wrote around the time of the town’s collapse.
However, once the filmmaker and her crew get to the town, eerie stuff starts to happen, and soon what occurred becomes scarier than anyone thought.
It was a decent read, but I did have a few issues with some portrayals of mental health here. But I read it and if someone said they liked things like The Blair Witch Project, I’d suggest this to them.
One by One by Ruth Ware • ★★★★☆
I love a good Ruth Ware book. In a Dark, Dark Wood remains one of my favorite thrillers, and I have to say that One by One competes with it.
The gist here: A small tech company goes on a corporate retreat in the Alps. It’s all very fancy and they plan to ski the week away. Right away, it’s obvious that not everyone gets along. Then an avalanche comes and changes everything.
I really enjoyed this. I stayed up late on work nights just to get some extra pages in—a maker of a satisfying read.
The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris • ★★★★★
I have been waiting for this book to come out for a while now and I absolutely devoured it. Pitched as a mix of Get Out and The Stepford Wives, I was obviously sold on the synopsis alone.
I really don’t want to give much away here, but I’ll give you the setup. Nella works as an editorial assistant in a prestigious New York publishing house. By and large, she feels her perspective as a Black woman is overlooked. She works hard, she tries to get the company to prioritize diversity. When the company hires Hazel, another Black editorial assistant, she’s excited for how the company might just start to change for the better. But soon Nella is left behind as Hazel climbs the ladder.
I won’t give more away. I can truly say I didn’t foresee how this book was going to go. It kept my attention until the very last page.
As always, you can follow along with my progress and see what I’ve read over on Goodreads!
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