But I have my blog again; I can participate thusly.
Here's what I read and/or listened to last month as I desperately tried to escape reality:
1. Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes🎧
2. Faithless (Grant County Series #5) by Karin Slaughter🎧
Do y'all watch WILL TRENT on TV? Well it's based on a series of books by Slaughter, and I've read them all. Correction, I've DEVOURED them all. But when they were done I was all, "I need to know about Sara Linton's life before she met Will," Linton being the protagonist of the Grant County books (along with her ex/husband, Jeffrey Tolliver). So I started the Grant County books back in December, and the first one, maybe two, were good, but I have to be honest, at this point I'm reading them just for closure. It's not great. The TRENT books are much, much better. It's about Linton, a doctor and medical examiner, and Tolliver, a police chief in Grant County, Georgia, and the cases that they work on together, which usually puts one or both of them in harm's way. Each book, I keep wishing they all die in a fire... ✮✮✮
YOU GUYSSSSSSSS. I abso-fucking-lutely LOVE the Heartstopper series--both on screen and now in book form. One of the first things I'm going to do once I'm gainfully employed again is buy all of the books so I can reread them every time I'm feeling blue. It is a queer-positive YA graphic novel about Charlie, an out teen, and Nick, a newly out/bi-curious boy, who fall in love. It's truly innocent and sweet and loving and just... I want to be a teenager again just to be Charlie and Nick's friend. ✮✮✮✮✮
4. Goal (St. Louis Series, Book 1) by Alexandria House🎧
So ya girl tried out an ultra spicy book to see what all the fuss was about, but made sure and chose one by a Black author featuring Black characters because BLACK HISTORY MONTH, and BAY-BEEEEEEE, I get it. I understand why people read this. I just with I had more of a warning. In this one, a famous hockey player takes custody of younger siblings he barely knows after his estranged father passes away, and then starts a romance with the nanny his fiance hires to take care of the kids because she doesn't want to do it herself. And listen if Spice is your thing, the spice was spicing in this book. As for me, myself, personally, I find sexy talk mad corny and cringe, so I had more second-hand embarrassment than I expected. Not sure I'll read the rest of the series, but I did kind of like this one! ✮✮✮1/2
5. Exit West by Mohsin Hamid🎧
I've discussed my feelings about this book with y'all already, but I will add that I do plan to read a physical copy of this one day because the audiobook made me feel a bit scattered; I need to read the book and see if it's more grounding. ✮✮✮
6. The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz🎧
I chose this thinking it was a supernatural horror and it was just a plain old thriller, so right there you can tell I was a bit disappointed with this book. This woman goes to a selective writing retreat hosted by one of her literary icons at a remote estate, and finds that her former friend, current enemy is also attending (plus three other women). Once there, they all learn that they are going to compete against each other by writing a whole ass novel from scratch; winner gets published, of course. But this is a thriller, so you already know some sinister shit is afoot. I liked it but I didn't, if it makes sense? I'm not sure if everyone's behaviour was believable, even for a fiction novel, and that would take me out of the story. And the ending was trash. Overall, ✮✮✮
7. Neruda on the Park by Cleyvis Natera 🕮
Let me tell y'all about this Garbage Pail Kid of a book I had the misfortune of choosing for the first meeting of the Jaded Book Club. Like, my friends were within their rights to beat my ass for choosing this book. It was awful. Mother and daughter deal with the gentrification of their Washington Heights, NYC neighborhood in peculiar ways. The characters were unlikeable, behaved in unlikely manners; there were cop-out conclusions to storylines; the prose was forced; the storytelling was clunky; and everyone needed a hot slap, including the author and her editor for allowing this book to be published in this state of disarray. Don't read this book. I only scored it as high as I did because there's a scene in the end that was exciting, and even then I was told I scored it too high. ✮✮
This was supposed to be horror and YET AGAIN I was tricked because it was just a thriller wrapped in a cozy historical fiction sweater. While I was invested in the fate of the characters, and the storytelling was decent, it was lacking something that I can't pinpoint, but I won't let that keep me from telling folks to check it out. Adelaide moves from California to stake a claim in Montana, and brings with her this heavy ass trunk filled with what she calls her burden. Adelaide is Black, by the way. Montana at this point in the story is quite empty. Her 'burden' starts eviscerating folks. Yeah, it's a lot. You might like it.✮✮✮
After all this, you'll feel the urge to recommend a book to me, I know, but PLEASE RESIST. I currently have over 200 books on my TBR list and it's starting to cause some stress. I don't want to burn out; I've only just found joy in books again.
Love & Balls,
Jaded
-----
well I've been scratching around in the dirt
looking for meaning in the cold, cold earth
to gather in what's left of your self-worth
'cause only love is what survives of us
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