Top August Reads!
Oh Hello! Welcome to the '-ber' months! This is definitely my (Maggie) time of year. I am already getting the bookshelves decorated with bats and working around my small orange menace to get some more spooky decor. I had a really fun reading month this month, with many of my 'most anticipated' reads coming out. I also had a lot of 5-star reads (okay it was three, but thats a lot), which feels crazy, but it happened and I have no regrets. Two them are included here, but also be sure to check out These Vile Hearts, which has its own review on the blog too!
I (Allison) had a fantastic reading month! I read FOUR 5-Star books. I have included two of them here in this post, but if you want longer run-downs of the other two, check out my posts on The Reimagining of Thornwood House and They Bloom at Night- out in the coming days.
Find My Way Down to You By Julian Winters - Maggie
As a person who is obsessed with Hadestown, this book is everything I wanted after seeing the movie in theaters. Following a teenager who has lost his boyfriend in a car crash he blames himself for, he stars to see a boy everywhere, and becomes intrigued on who he is. What he doesn't know is his new crush is a ferrier of the dead, who helps souls move to the other side. When August learns that Cary can bring him to Ades briefly, he is hoping to find his ex to apologize for what happened. But as he spends more time in Ades and with Cary, August starts to battle with himself about finally moving on and having feelings for someone new. This book destroyed me in the best way and was honestly beautiful. I am so excited to keep throwing it at all of you.
Martyr! By Kaveh Akbar- Allison
Recovering addict Cyrus Shams has become obsessed with the ideas of martyrdom and death. An aspiring writer plagued with trauma from his and his Iranian-American family's pasts, he is struggling to complete "The Book of Martyrs," struggling to find meaning in his rural Indiana impoverished life, and struggling to stay clean. When his roommate/friend/something more, Zee, encourages him to check out a living art exhibit where terminally ill artist, Orkideh, mills about the Brooklyn Museum for her final days, he hops on a plane to mine the artist for her views on his focal subject matters. What he discovers as he interacts with Orkideh molds not only his views on his writing but also his views on himself and his family history.
This book weaves a masterful web of secrecy and trauma in the past still impacting a young man's present and future. Themes of LGBTQIA+ acceptance, the immigrant experience, grief associated with America's military industrial complex, and PTSD permeate through the pages. You can tell Akbar is traditionally a poet, as the scenes he captures are wonderfully vivid, if often despondent. This was undoubtedly a 5-Star read, even if it wasn't exactly "feel-good."
The Dark in Her Veins By M.K. Lobb- Maggie
When being a sinner is a crime that will eventually kill you the wealthy pay for people to commit the harshest sins for them. Talin Keller is a hired killer for the Prophet, a man who has the world city wrapped around his finger, being a representative for a higher being. Talin knows death is coming for her, but when she is sent on a mission to find the Warden, who runs the darker parts of the city untouched by the Prophet, she starts to learn more about a world she was supposed to be worried about. The Warden might be able to help Talin heal from her disease, but he also might something she is meant to fear, an abolist, who lives off the sins of others. This book is dark, the characters are morally black and there are darker aspects of romance. The Warden and Talin spend an equal amount of time trying to kill each other as they do longing for each other and I'm obsessed. I love M.K. Lobb books.
Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It By Cory Doctorow- Allison
Most of us feel like the internet and its associated technologies are slowly getting worse while also remaining inescapable. This book gives validation to those feelings by analyzing how we got there. Doctorow digs into the nitty-gritty. He details the specific policy choices made by governments and by tech CEOs that led to not only user market capture, but also fellow business market capture. Once we were all locked in and captive to various platforms, tech companies then were able to devest in making their platforms better for us, relying on the fact that we MUST tolerate how crappy their platforms have become because we simply have no where else to go. In a hopeful ending, Doctorow leads us down some possible avenues of change, as he identifies the choices that can be undone to give power back to those ensnared in the enshittification process. I consider this a must-read for our generation. We have to know what has happened and is being allowed to continue before we can fight against it and enact those lasting changes.
Did you have any 5-Star reads this month? What would you recommend we read as we venture into the "-ber" months?
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