Best Books of July
As I say every month, I’m shamelessly stealing this idea from Jessica Lahey. She has a recurring monthly date where she reviews all the books she reads that month. Book reviews are important for authors, and I want to get better at doing this.
So. I’m going to review them here and also online, but I’m going to do it a little differently. I’m only going to review the stuff I really liked. I don’t see a reason to spend my time writing about something I didn’t love; it’s just using up more of my energy. So only positive reviews.
These are the books I liked (or mostly liked) from July.
One Perfect Couple (Ruth Ware): I had a hard time getting into this one. Then, it became intriguing. Then it became far-fetched. So. If you like Ruth Ware, you will probably like this book. It’s a good beach read, but it’s also one of the least realistic ones.
The Twist of a Knife (Anthony Horowitz): I have a thing where I won’t read the next book in this series until the next one comes out so I always have an Anthony Horowitz book to look forward to. I love his books that much. Like all of the other books in the series, this story was perfection. I love love love these books and would give them a million stars instead of just five if Goodreads allowed it.
The Bingo Hall Detectives (Jonathan Whitelaw): I was intrigued by this book because it had so many five-star reviews, so I bought it last time we were in the UK. It was a sweet cozy mystery with a bickering son-in-law and mother-in-law. It felt very Marlow Murders but in the Lake District. I’ll definitely read the next in the series, and I bought the third one when it was on sale.
Long Island Compromise (Taffy Brodesser-Akner): This was another book that exceeded the Goodreads star system. This was brilliant. Truly the best satire I’ve read in a long time that hits such a deep truth and familiar space. I loved every second of this book.
What did you read last month?
1 comment
Ooh, these all sound good. 🙂 I finished two books in July — both of them 4.5 star reads, rounded up to 5 on Goodreads. (Also reviewed on StoryGraph as well as my blog.):
* “You Are Here” by David Nicholls. If you like Nicholls’ other books (One Day, Us), you will probably like this one too. I especially loved it because both of the main characters are childless, not entirely by choice. They meet through a mutual friend for a group hike along the English Coast-to-Coast trail. The others soon drop out, but they keep on walking and talking together. We all know where this is going 😉 but it’s the journey and not the destination that makes this a good read.
* “Bring Up the Bodies” by Hilary Mantel (book #2 in the Thomas Cromwell Trilogy) — part of a year-long “slow readalong” hosted by Simon at the Footnotes and Tangents Substack — an amazing experience! We started April 29th (after reading #1, “Wolf Hall,” in the early months of the year) and finished in mid-July, and are now on #3, “The Mirror and the Light.” King Henry VIII is now married to Anne Boleyn — but she has failed to provide him with the male heir he craves, rumours of her infidelity are circulating, and his attention is turning to one of her attendants, Jane Seymour. He enlists Thomas Cromwell to help rid himself of Anne — just as Cromwell helped him orchestrate his divorce from his first wife, Katherine of Aragon. But as Anne’s position at court becomes ever-more precarious, so too does Cromwell’s… Gorgeously written, and much faster paced/more accessible than “Wolf Hall” — reads like a thriller (even though we all know what happens!).