June Reading Wrap-Up
In June #bookstagram had me taking a closer look at the kinds of stories I’ve read so far in 2020. Unfortunately, I realized that I hadn’t read ONE book by a black author and in general my reading was lacking diversity of any kind. So I decided to mainly focus on BIPOC reads in June (and moving forward to make sure I’m incorporating more BIPOC overall). I’m glad I did because The Vanishing Half is one of my top books of the year, it was that good. I also loved The Hate U Give (and I watched the movie right after reading which I highly recommend). The Nightingale was another great read - and is definitely cementing my theory that maybe I like historical fiction more than I thought I did. Such a Fun Age was a good book, but I definitely think it got more hype than it deserved. Lastly, I absolutely hated every single page of An Abundance of Katherines and only powered through it instead of DNFing it because it was short.
The Nightingale
I read a lot of good books in June, but The Nightingale was probably my favorite of the bunch. Set in France during WWII, The Nightingale highlights the side of the war we don’t typically hear or learn about, the women’s war.
Goodreads Summary:
In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says goodbye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France…but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When a German captain requisitions Vianne’s home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive.
Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old girl, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets Gäetan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can…completely. But when he betrays her, Isabelle joins the Resistance and never looks back, risking her life time and again to save others.
With courage, grace and powerful insight, bestselling author Kristin Hannah captures the epic panorama of WWII and illuminates an intimate part of history seldom seen: the women’s war. The Nightingale tells the stories of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France–a heartbreakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the durability of women. It is a novel for everyone, a novel for a lifetime.
The Vanishing Half
This is a book I picked-up through BOTM club (click here if you want to sign-up, I don’t get paid but I do get a free book credit!). It’s hard to even put into words how good The Vanishing Half is, and it deserves every bit of the hype it’s been getting since its release earlier in June.
Goodreads Summary:
The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Ten years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters' storylines intersect?
Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.
Such A Fun Age
I picked this book up after Reese Witherspoon named it one of her bookclub picks a few months back. I definitely enjoyed Such a Fun Age, but towards the middle the story started to kind of drag and it was easy to predict what would happen.
Goodreads Summary:
In the midst of a family crisis one late evening, white blogger Alix Chamberlain calls her African American babysitter, Emira, asking her to take toddler Briar to the local market for distraction. There, the security guard accuses Emira of kidnapping Briar, and Alix's efforts to right the situation turn out to be good intentions selfishly mismanaged.
The Hate U Give
The Hate U Give is a book that has been on my radar for a while, but I just hadn’t gotten around to picking it up. The movie (based on the book) was available for free for a limited time through Apple and HBO but I’m one of those people that has to read the book first, so I finally got the kick in the butt I needed to crack open this one. And I am so glad I did. Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, The Hate U Give provides a powerful perspective on racism and police brutality.
Goodreads Summary:
Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.
Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.
But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.
Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, this is a powerful and gripping YA novel about one girl's struggle for justice.
An Abundance of Katherines
My least favorite read not only this month but probably ever. Normally I love John Green but something about this book made me wish it was over the entire time I was reading. I found it unrealistic, boring and with way too much math and weird history included.
Goodreads Summary:
When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton's type happens to be girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact.
On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has ten thousand dollars in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy-loving best friend riding shotgun--but no Katherines. Colin is on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which he hopes will predict the future of any relationship, avenge Dumpees everywhere, and finally win him the girl.
Love, friendship, and a dead Austro-Hungarian archduke add up to surprising and heart-changing conclusions in this ingeniously layered comic novel about reinventing oneself.
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