All the books I read in June and what I thought of them

I don't remember what I did last month, so I probably didn't do anything important. It's too hot out to do anything important five months out of the year. I've thought about moving to far southern Chile so I can do important things all year, but I haven't thought about it seriously. In June I read 10 books, and, as always, I have thoughts about all of them.

 

✨✨✨

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I liked the parts where it was snowy, and I especially liked the part where the protagonist buys yams and reminisces about his childhood. This book was wild and the author kept me pretty invested for almost 600 pages, which is an accomplishment. The 1950s was a great decade for books. 

❄️❄️❄️

Loveless by Alice Oseman

rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

It's difficult to explain how much I loved this book, so I won't. Alice Oseman always slays. 

💞💞💞

East of Eden by John Steinbeck (rerereread)

rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

My love for this book has become too much and I can't handle it anymore. I am seriously tempted to annotate East of Eden the next time I read it because my love is too great and can't all fit in my brain. For the first time I have decided to read other books by John Steinbeck besides this one. My thinking used to be that there's no way anything else he wrote could be better than this, but my thinking now is that I don't believe the author of East of Eden could ever write anything bad. On the other hand, Haruki Murakami wrote Kafka on the Shore, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, AND South of the Border, West of the Sun, but I don't want to think about that. 

🥬🥬🥬

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes

rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

My friend Chaney once again kindly lent me A Thousand Ships. This is a solid book. It is not nearly as charming as Stone Blind but that's a high bar. As a Trojan Women enjoyer, I liked the parts that focused on the perspective of the Trojan women, and I liked Andromache best. 

⛵⛵⛵

Violet Made of Thorns by Gina Chen

rating: ⭐⭐⭐

I read this book because my friend Lydia loves it. Unfortunately, I have largely left my YA fantasy era. Parts of this book were quite good; Violet's prophetic dreams were always fun, and some of the dialogue was genuinely very funny. I think my problem was that the book's major selling point is the romance between a morally grey oracle/prophet/witch and the prince, but their relationship did not do it for me. It didn't play a huge role in the book, and I didn't like their chemistry, and I don't think the rest of the plot stands on its own, either. I feel like Violet Made of Thorns sort of wanted to be a romantasy, but it didn't go all in. Just be a romantasy, it's fine. Lots of people like that genre.

🌺🌺🌺

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

rating: ⭐⭐⭐

I would love to be a member of a fellowship. One of my number one goals in life is to join an association so that I can have associates, but I almost think it would be better to join a fellowship so that I can have fellows. My friend Maya kindly recommended and lent this book to me. Insomuch as this book underwhelmed me it was entirely my own fault since I read it in the worst way possible (inconsistently over four months) because I was really really busy procrastinating my homework and didn't have a lot of time for reading. And this book was just a little too slow to really grab me in those circumstances. My goal for next semester is to procrastinate my homework by reading!! This would solve all of my problems. I liked that The Fellowship of the Ring was a major step up from The Hobbit in terms of characterization and relationships between characters, and I am excited to see how Sam and Frodo's friendship develops in the next books!! 

💍💍💍

Twelve Caesars by Mary Beard

rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I listened to this book as an audiobook at my job because my job is checking the wifi connection in allegedly uninhabited houses. This was great background noise. I love Mary Beard. I really thought Twelve Caesars was going to be about the history of the Roman Empire, but it really was just about statues (and paintings) of Roman emperors. I do not remember a single person's name in this book because all of the characters were obscure artists and art collectors. I truly hate audiobooks. Audiobooks are mentally exhausting to me and they make me forget how to read and they are so slow. Anyway, I love Mary Beard.

🗿🗿🗿

The Idiot by Elif Batuman

rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨

I liked reading this book because Selin and I are exactly the same age at the same point in our lives. This book was so strangely immersive that I didn't feel like I was reading at all, and then I would look up and it had been an hour. Just fantastic!! I wish they taught me in a year as much Latin as Selin learns Russian from her Russian class. She picks up languages so fast. She goes to Hungary for, like, a month, and by the end she is conversational in Hungarian (although, in fairness, she also speaks Turkish and she says that there are some similarities between Hungarian and Turkish). I wish I were her. I don't wish I had a weird situationship with an idiot man, but I don't think that would have happened to me if I were Selin. 

📚📚📚

Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I think the protagonist of this book is my favorite portrayal of a religious/spiritual character that I have ever read, although I'm wildly unqualified to have an opinion on whether any religious character is well-written. Longtime readers will know that I have never been baptized in the holy spirit, but it was really neat when Gifty was!! 

⛪⛪⛪

Summer Bird Blue by Akemi Dawn Bowman

rating: ⭐⭐

I think this might be a really good book for someone who is dealing with grief, but for me it was not good at all. Most of the friendships in this book had very little depth, which I especially didn't like since the protagonist, being aromantic and asexual, is not interested in romantic relationships. No one should have to go though 300 pages without having meaningful friendships, especially if they don't have a significant other. I also didn't like any of the plot twists, and it seemed like the author just included them for shock value even though they don't contribute to the story in a significant way. And every character felt like they were about twelve (none of them were twelve).

🎶🎶🎶

Usually I would say something else at the end of my post. I hope my readership is having a lovely summer!!