Book Review – Page 24

July Wrap up

At the beginning of this month I made a pretty big TBR hopeful list for myself that I really wanted to tackle. Did I complete my hopefuls or did I fall short? Lets find out!

The Honest Truth

These three books were my main hopefuls for this month! I got “The Maidens” and “One Last Stop” in my June Book of the Month box and was dying to read them! “Devil’s Knot” came in a true crime premium book box from One Night Stand With a Book and I have been dying to read it since!

I am going to be honest with you, I only read one of these hopefuls and that was “One Last Stop” by Casey McQuiston. I know I will get around to the other two books hopefully soon! I have read so many great reviews about “The Maidens” that I need to hop on that train soon!

What Did I Really Read

Did you really think I only finished one book this last month? I am a slow reader but come on, I’m not that slow!

I read a total of four books this month, one of which was a graphic novel. Have you read any of these books? Would you count a graphic novel towards your reading goals?

Five Star Ratings

“One Last Stop” by Casey McQuiston

I gave this book a five star rating because it truly deserved it!

The characters in this LGBTQ book were written so well and I could really find someway to relate to each and everyone of them. From true crime to psychics you can find some reason to love these characters.

I hope everyone will give this book a try.

Check out my full review here!

“Black Lantern” by Chris Bodily

This was my first ever graphic novel, I stumbled across this gem at an art festival in Utah! Turns out Chris is also from Utah and created this gorgeous piece of work!

The cat Julius is my absolute favorite! He is so cute and hilarious! I haven’t wrote an official review yet but you should give it a look!

Four Star Reads

“Where the Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens

I gave this a four star read because it didn’t fully live up to the hype but was still really good! It started off a little slow but the ending was so good!

This is a very talked about book and honestly I would be so surprised if you haven’t read this one yet, but if you haven’t here is your sign!

Check my full review out here!

Three Star Reads

“A Type of Hunger” by Pamela D. Beverly

I found this book just scrolling through blogs and read a comment about an author wishing for some more reviews, and so that’s what I did.

This book received three stars because it had many grammar errors that were very distracting and the story felt very rushed towards the end.

This was a self published book so the grammar errors make sense and are expected. Please support Indy Authors!

Read my full review here!

Overall

Last month went a lot better than I originally expected. I have lately only been reading two or three books each month so to get four books finished I am pretty happy with that! I am hoping I can keep this momentum up for August and read at least four books!

QOTD: How many books did you finish this month? Did you read all the books on you list or did you mood read?

(Book Review) “One Last Stop” By Casey McQuiston

One of the most talked about LGBTQ books I have seen lately is Casey McQuiston’s second book “One Last Stop”. After reading her first book, “Red, White and Royal Blue”, and absolutely loving it, I knew I had to pick this one up and see if all the hype lived up to the expectations.

“I don’t know how to have something that I do, every day, like as an adult who does a thing. It’s nuts that we all start out having these vague ideas of what we like to do, hobbies, interests, and then one day everybody has their thing, you know?”
Direct quote from book. Page 159

Summary

August moves to New York for school but mostly to escape her mothers obsession with finding Augusts missing uncle. With luck she finds a cheap apartment for rent with the most unlikely roommates, a decent job at a pancake diner and a perfect subway route on the Q train. But she could never have imagined this combination of things could change her life.

A coffee stain threatens embarrassment when she stumbles onto the Q train and a very attractive girl is standing there starring back at her. After a delightful conversation a friendship, but mostly a big crush, blooms.

As August goes about her daily routines the Q train takes her to each destination and Subway Girl happens to always be on the train with her. Life continues, love blossoms and trials occur. Will love concur all? Will Augusts mom ever figure out what happened to her brother? Read this book and fall in love as every mystery gets opened up.

“But to kiss and be kissed. To be wanted. That’s a different thing from love. And maybe, maybe if she tried, they could have something. Not everything, but something.”
Direct quote from book. Page 210

Rating

Review

I absolutely loved this book! It had everything that I could have ever asked for in a good romance read. Steamy scenes, check! Loveable characters, check! Great writing, check! I fell in love with this book from the first chapter, no joke. I really love Casey’s writing, she has this way of pulling you into the story and making relatable characters.

There was a sentence at the beginning of the book, Page 49 to be exact, that states “All I listen to are podcasts about murder.” When I read that one single sentence I knew that August and I were pretty similar. I really do listen to true crime podcast all day every day! I feel that it is very important for authors to create relatable characters so their audience gets pulled into their books and feel some kind of emotional ties to the characters they are reading about.

I honestly didn’t find anything about this book that bugged me. It felt like an original idea, I didn.t find any spelling or grammar mistakes or at least any that caught my attention, I had no issues with any of the characters and I devoured this entire book! I Highly recommend for everyone to stop what they are doing and grab this book!

I will be completely honest, I haven’t read too many LGBTQ books and I really regret it. Especially after I read this book I know I will be searching for my next LGBTQ read! If you have any suggestions please send them my way!

If You Liked This Then You Will Love This

Written by the same author, of course you would love her second book. However, I feel like “One Last Stop” was even better than “Red, White and Royal Blue” which amazes me because I loved RWRB so very much! If you haven’t read either of them then pick them both up!

QOTD: What is your favorite LGBTQ book that you have read? What is one on you TBR?

Throwback Thursday (Book Review): “A Type Of Hunger” By: Pamela D. Beverly

I found this book while I was scrolling through blogs and reading comments. Pamela has a few books available for people to read other than this one, one is even a children’s book that sounds so adorable! She published these books on her own and I am so excited to support her!

Title: A Type Of Hunger

Author: Pamela D. Beverly

Number of Pages: 132

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Synopsis

Nate is a man who values the idea of working hard to get the things in your life. When he loses his job unexpectedly he would rather keep it to himself instead of talk to his girlfriend and get some advice. This caused some issues in his relationship and they ended up breaking up due to the secrets. After months of searching for jobs and picking up temp work and scrounging every penny his health declines and serves as a major wake up call! Will he find a job? Will he come clean about his secrets?

Review

Pamela published this book all on her own which is so great! I love Indy authors! The only issue with this is that I found quite a few spelling and grammar errors that were very distracting when reading the book. However, you will run across these errors even in professional editing situations.

I really enjoyed the beginning of this book because she sets up her characters so well! However, towards the middle of the book it started to feel quite rushed and I missed some key elements to the story. I loved a lot of the ideas behind this story but with the book only being 132 pages I felt there was room to expand the storyline and add in some missed details. But overall this is a book and an author that you should really give a chance.

Pamela D. Beverly’s Blog

Buy The Book

I always feel like three stared books get a bad rep because it seems mediocre or just not good enough. This book is honestly worth the read! I am just giving it a three star rating right now because of the many grammar and spelling errors along with the fact that it was really short and felt rushed. However, maybe you are looking for a really quick read, this book would be a great option for you.

Please check out my rating scale here to better understand why this book received this rating.

Rating Scale

(Book Review) “Where the Crawdads Sing” By: Delia Owens

I finally finished this book last night and I can’t wait to share this long over due review! This book was supposed to be finished by the end of June for my book club. However, the other two girls in my club didn’t finish the book either and still haven’t.

This book has been on my TBR list since I started to deep dive into books about a year ago. I am so excited to have finally finished the book and see how it compared to other bookish reviews.

Synopsis

🚫 Possible Spoilers 🚫

Kya was six years old when she watched her ma, four siblings and pa one by one leave her behind in their Marshland home.

All alone Kya is forced to find ways to survive off of the land around her. She gets money by selling mussels and smoked fish to Jumpin, the convenience store clerk. Surviving off the land helped her learn a lot about the marsh and its living components.

Being alone for so long, Kya wishes for companionship and affection. Two boys take interest in her wild Marsh Girl ways, Tate Walker and Chase Andrews. Tate is a smart sweet boy while only wanted Kya to be happy. Chase is known for “getting around”.

When Chase goes missing all eyes point towards Kya, the mysterious Marsh Girl. With hardly any evidence can they convict her?

Rating

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/ 5 stars

Review

This book swaps between timelines from when Kya was left at age six to when Chase Andrews goes missing and then progresses through time chronologically through the two phases.

When I started reading this book it went by really slow. I found it hard to transition from my previous reads to this because of the southern writing style. The storyline at the begging was also just a tad slow, I honestly didn’t fall in love with Kya’s character until probably 150 pages in. Once the murder trial began, I couldn’t put the book down and finished the rest that night.

Overall this book was a gorgeous read! I really loved how it started when she was six and you got to watch her grow up and become the woman she is. What a great coming-of-age story!

I do believe this book lived up to its hype! I definitely would recommend this book to anyone who asks.

Have you read this book? If so, what were your thoughts?

Is this book still on your shelf? Why haven’t you read it yet?

Throwback Thursday (Book Review) “Get A Life Chloe Brown” By: Talia Hibbert

Welcome back to another Throwback Thursday book review. This week I want to highlight a two star read of mine. Once again this review might be controversial because everyone seems to love this book! “Get a Life Chloe Brown” is highly talked about and I have came across some really amazing reviews from other readers that made me want to pick this book up, so I ordered it on amazon and immediately dove into it.

Synopsis

Chloe Brown has Fibromyalgia which causes chronic pain, tie that together with being dumped by a fiancé and you get a girl who stays at home to protect her health and feelings. However, after a near death experience she puts together a list, not a bucket list but a “Get a Life List”. On this list are a few items such as; ride on a motorcycle, go camping and a few things to the extreme of have meaningless sex. However, one thing was not on that list and it was to fall in love.

Rating

⭐️⭐ / 5 Stars

Review

This book I felt was way over hyped as I saw so many five star reviews. This I feel is a big reason I couldn’t get into it and maybe if I picked this up with zero expectations I would have enjoyed this a bit more. However, after this book I really don’t see myself picking up the other two books in this series.

It took me a very long time to get into this read because it was very slow to start out. I also did not feel any kind of connection with Chloe other than being Plus size and having some health issues. The characters didn’t jump out at me for any particular reason and the relationship felt quite forced. It was a lot of off and on with feelings and it was rough to sit through. However sometimes you did like the relationship and it could be cute at times so I guess I am at a toss up with that.

From other peoples reviews I was expecting some major spicy scenes, don’t get me wrong, there were a few scenes that peeked my interest but not as many as I thought there would be I guess. However sometimes in books with spicy scenes use some interesting choice descriptive words that leave you feeling more awkward than interested, this book was not one of those. I felt quite comfortable with the words Talia used to describe these scenes, so I applaud that!

The main reasons this got a low rating of two stars would be;

I struggled to finish the book
I did not love the characters relationship
Chloe wasn’t very relatable in my eyes
Chloe got on my nerves more often than not

These points are highlighted in my previous post called “My Rating System” Follow this link to check that out. https://worldofbaiblog.com/2021/06/14/my-rating-system/

Have you read this book/series? If so what were your thoughts? Maybe I have been a bit harsh on this book.

(Book Review) “A Deadly Influence” By: Mike Omer

I chose this book as a free book from Amazon First reads a few months back. Have you heard of Amazon First Reads? Are you a Prime member or a Kindle Unlimited member? Each month Amazon posts a list of early release books or editors choice books and knocks the price down for Prime members or FREE for Kindle Unlimited members. You will get to pick one book off this list and occasionally even two! follow this link to see the books for this month; https://www.amazon.com/firstreads/ref=apubna_pr_gs_10002_tx_1_br_2106

Synopsis

Abby Is a police hostage negotiator for the NYPD. But that doesn’t even scratch the surface of her chaotic life. When Eden Fletcher reports her son Nathan as missing, Abby is faced with her past. Eden and Abby grew up in a cult that Abby has worked so hard to forget. While battling her past that’s barreling towards her she knows she has to stay focused because Nathan’s life is at risk! Can Abby Find Nathan in time or will her past hold her back?

Rating

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/ 5 Stars

Review

This book dives deep into the struggles people in cults are facing whether they are currently in that cult or have gotten themselves out of it, the tragedies they faced in the cult will always follow them and this book really shows that. I personally don’t know too much about cults but I found this book very insightful and it made me want to do some of my own research.

I feel all the characters had really interesting story lines and each of them had their own struggles and secrets that really kept me engaged in each chapter.

I really didn’t have anything bad to say about this book! The way it ended had me craving the second book so I immediately went to buy it. However, jokes on me because it sadly doesn’t come out till March 2022.

things to be aware of are some possible trigger warnings before picking up this book.

🚫 Possible Trigger Warning 🚫

Cults

Rape

Kidnapping

What are your favorite Thriller books?