June Wrap-up and July Hopefuls

Two of my June reads

June Wrap-Up

• Finished: 9
• Started but not finished: 2
• Total pages read: 2,738
• Average rating: 3.944

I had not expected that I’d read so many books in June! I thought I’d have time to finish five books, but I read four more. In the beginning of the month, I read one novel in verse, Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming (5/5 stars), which was also my favorite book of the month. I also read Sarah Brooks’s steampunk fantasy The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands (3/5 stars), which unfortunately was a bit of a disappointment.

I also finished one non-fiction book, Susan Faludi’s Backlash: The Undeclared War Against Women. I had read it two times previously, but it had been over twenty years since my last read. It was definitely time for a reread, especially as this book is unfortunately a timely read as we were facing yet another backlash against women.

The final week and a half I spent at my mother’s house, and I had the opportunity to pick my reads from her collection. My initial goal was to read two books, but I managed to read six. Here are mini reviews of the books I read.

Rest of the books I read in June

 

Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut

Genre: dystopian fiction
First published August 18, 1952
341 pages
My rating: 4/5

Player Piano is Kurt Vonnegut’s (1922–2007) debut novel from 1952. In a dystopian future, the second industrial revolution has abolished almost all menial labor. Only a select few engineers and other highly intelligent people have jobs. Other people (mostly men) must find themselves odd jobs or to live on government allowance. Engineer Paul Proteus must find a way to live a meaningful life in this world run by supercomputers.

This was a fascinating description of a world that is vaguely similar to the reality where we live in – there is even talk about the third industrial revolution where computers might replace the jobs of engineers and authors. While the world the characters live in is bleak, Vonnegut’s style is more satirical than depressing. Unfortunately, I didn’t fully connect with the characters, but this was an interesting read, nonetheless. I gave it four stars.

 

Poetry

Next, I picked up two poetry books. The first was a selection of poems by Chilean poet and diplomat Pablo Neruda (1904–1973). The selection included poems about love, the Spanish Civil War, and Neruda’s life in Chile. I wouldn’t call them the best poetry I’ve read, but I did enjoy “Ode to the Dog” and “Ode to the Cat.”

I also read a selection of poems by Finnish poet Lauri Viita (1916–1965). I liked his use of metaphor and innovative rhymes, but unfortunately, I don’t think his poetry has been translated in English.

 

The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher

Genre: historical fiction
Published: January 11, 2022
336 pages
My rating: 4/5

The Paris Bookseller is Kerri Maher’s historical fiction set in the 1920’s Paris. Sylvia Beach opens an American bookstore Shakespeare and Company in 1919, and in the next two decades she cultivates friendships with several up-and-coming French, American, and British authors, including Ezra Pound and Ernest Hemingway. When James Joyce’s Ulysses is banned in the United States, Beach decides to publish the book herself. This was a fascinating depiction of life in Paris in the 1920’s, the (relative) freedom LGBT+ people had to express their sexuality in that time and place, and the story of how Joyce’s literary masterpiece (that I yet have to read!) was published. However, I think I would have enjoyed this book more if it had been nonfiction. Because we have that much information about the lives of all the historical characters mentioned in the novel, the story at points included details that felt unnecessary or disjointed. Instead of being a fully immersive story, the novel relied too much on name dropping and listing historical facts. Nevertheless, I gave this book four stars.

 

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Genre: literary fiction
First published 1926
189 pages
My rating: 3/5

The Sun Also Rises is Ernest Hemingway’s first novel published in 1926. This novel was mentioned in The Paris Bookseller, so I decided to give it a try. The novel depicts a group of young and disillusioned expatriates living in 1920’s Paris. The main character Jake Barnes goes to Spain in his summer vacation to fish and to watch bull fights with a motley group of male friends who are all in love with Lady Brett Ashley.

Hemingway’s style is very sparse and impassive. I’m fine with that style in Hemingway’s short stories, but I don’t particularly enjoy it in his longer works. I also find his characters too similar to each other. All female love interests are interchangeable, as are his male narrators. They all speak and act in exactly the same way. If you’ve never read Hemingway, I would not recommend this as your first foray into his novels, but if you already love his style, you’ll probably enjoy this book as well. I gave it three stars.

 

True Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop by Annie Darling

Genre: contemporary romance
Published: January 1, 2017
416 pages
My rating: 3.5/5

True Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop is a contemporary romance and the second book in Annie Darling’s Lonely Hearts Bookshop series. I had not read the first book before picking this up, but as this is part of a series of interconnected stand-alone romances, the plot was easy to follow. This was actually a book I chose when my mother asked me to find her a light summer read, but I wanted to read it myself as well. The Finnish title (Ylpeyttä ja ennakkoluuloa Bloomsburyn kirjakaupassa) includes a reference to Pride and Prejudice, which is part of the reason I chose this book. Although the book is not a direct retelling of Austen’s novel, the main character Verity Love is a huge Jane Austen fan, and her guiding principle is: “What would Elizabeth Bennet do?”

Verity Love is also a huge introvert, and in order to get out of having to mingle in social events or to go on blind dates with random guys her friends suggest to her, she invents a fake boyfriend. But when her friends secretly follow her to meet this mysterious date, she panics and asks help from a stranger – and suddenly, she finds herself having not one, but two fake boyfriends.

Instead of Pride and Prejudice, a closer parallel to the main male character would have been Sense and Sensibility, as both Marianne and Johnny learn that people can have more than one true love. Johnny’s reason for fake dating Verity is that he’s hopelessly in love with a married woman. Although the book makes it clear that there is nothing sexual happening between him and the woman, I found it difficult to forgive his naivety and his acceptance of the woman’s emotional infidelity to her husband. The writing was fun, as were the fake dating shenanigans, but some of the events were unbelievable, and I never warmed to Johnny. For that reason, I’m giving this book three and a half stars.

 

July Hopefuls

July Hopefuls

July is time for the Jane Austen July readathon. I have a separate blog post for my TBR, so check that out if you want more information on my July hopefuls. I probably won’t have time to read many (if any) other books outside of that list.

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If you want to see more about the books I’ve read and a little book haul, check out my June wrap-up video/reading vlog on YouTube: