I am not anything if not fashionably late. The past few months of Quarter 3 have really changed the way I read. I know that if I take time to look back at the previous few months of my reading and compare stats, there will be a pretty big difference in both the quantity of books and the genre of books that I’ve read.
But before I can start my Quarter 3 reading wrap up and review, I needed to actually sit down and take time to look back at Quarter 1 and Quarter 2.
Grab yourself a cup of your beverage of choice and let’s do some time travel and go back in time and look at my reading from the past seven months.
Total Books Read: 18
My reading in the first three months of the year was surprising to say the least. I really diversified my reads and picked up genres I normally wouldn’t pick up. Take for example, my first read of the year. The past few years, I always picked up a book from an author I’ve read from previously and loved. More often than not, it was a romance book. This year, I started of my reading with “Dava Shastri’s Last Day” by Kirthana Ramisetti. I truly enjoyed this book and it set the tone for a new popular genre that I’ve quickly come to love in 2022 which is contemporary fiction.
As you can see in my pie chart, my most read genre next to romance is contemporary fiction. The most memorable contemporary fiction book I’ve read in Quarter 1 has to be “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” by Ocean Vuong. This book has a ton of trigger warnings including but not limited to war trauma, abuse, drug use/addiction, racism, homophobia, violence, loss, grief, and more. Ocean Vuong is a poet and this book, as small as it, reads like poetry and covers so much ground in terms of growing up as the child of an immigrant from a war torn country and having to be the one in charge of navigating a new world where your sense of self-identity is being weighed down by feelings of not belonging anywhere. Vuong never wastes a word and still somehow manages to encapsulate that feeling of fear, confusion, and loneliness in not feeling like you belong in the community where you came from and also not belong in the community you now live in. You can read my full length review here.
It’s also not a surprise that my most read genre is romance. I read a total of 6 romance books this quarter and most of them were historical fiction romances. My favorite historical romances of this quarter have to be “The Secret” and “The Heiress Gets a Duke”.
I read a ton of historical fiction romances and over time, they all start to read the same. Everything from the writing to the tropes to the characters start to blend in together. Julie Garwood’s writing in “The Secret” was a breath of fresh air. I don’t read much highlander books and so the setting itself gripped me really well but other than that, I loved the friendship between the two female characters in this book and also all this historical facts the author included in the plot. I learned so much about childbirth back in the 1100’s and the political and religious ideologies that were involved in it, often times to the detriment of both the mother and baby.
“The Heiress Gets a Duke” by Harper St. George also featured a new setting I haven’t read about yet. It features an American socialite family who travel back across the pond to enter their daughters into the Season. This book features the most inconsiderate, awful parents ever but also the most memorable love story. I don’t know how to describe the relationship in this book other than it felt real. Sometimes the conflict and drama in a romance feels too easy or too outlandish and it messes with the tension in the plot. The tension and the conflict in this book felt raw and tangible. The characters were memorable and the struggles felt real and it made the book so much more easier to fall in love with. If you liked Bridgerton Season 2, I highly recommend picking this one up.
The most interesting outcome of my Quarter 1 reading has to be reading Pandemic/Dystopian/Apocalyptic books that I never know how to categorize. Is it sci-fi? Is it dystopian? In January, I ended up reading the most popular pandemic book which is “Station Eleven” by Emily St. John Mandel. I surprisingly enjoyed this book a ton. I also randomly picked up “Migrations” by Charlotte McConaghy because Emily St. John Mandel blurbed it and at the time, I couldn’t get enough of the writing and mood of “Station Eleven” and was desperate for more.
Picking up “Migrations” at the library was one of the best reading choices of the year. I absolutely fell in love with this book. Its writing is so gripping and the setting and pacing of the story was just so, so, so well done. Unlike “Station Eleven” which centers around a pandemic, this book more so follows an environmental disaster type of situation. All I knew going into this book is that it’s centered around a female main character who’s willing to do just about anything to track the migration paths of the Arctic Terns and that involves getting on a boat with complete strangers.
The most disappointing book in Quarter 1 was “In the Quick” by Kate Hope Day. I absolutely loved the first three quarters of this book but I thought the last quarter was a bit disappointing. The reason for my disappointment is mainly my fault for not reading the summary before going into this book. The first half of the book started off so strong. This book is somewhat of a coming of age story featuring a girl who’s uncle is a world renown engineer and leader of the team that built a rocket/space shuttle. When her uncle passes away and people lose contact with the team on the space shuttle her uncle built, our main character is determined to find out what went wrong and what her uncle could have done wrong. The setting was so very visual and atmospheric but in the second half of the book, there was a love story element introduced that felt so sudden and out of nowhere. It didn’t feel romantic to me and it felt so sudden and jarring. The thing I didn’t read in the summary of this book is that it this book has a Jane Eyre twist. I just wished that we never got the whole Jane Eyre, Mr. Rochester thing and we just got a story about a bad ass female trying to solve this life long mystery and problem she’s been bothered by since she was a child. It’s more of a personal opinion so do with that what you want.
Total Books Read: 17
In Quarter 2, I returned back to my roots of reading romance. Part of this was inspired by Bridgerton Season 2 dropping in April. Also because with the start of April, my life decided to turn into a muddled mess of stress, anxiety, and complete lack of control. Romance being my comfort genre, it’s not surprising that 11 out of the 17 books I read in Quarter 2 were romances.
It’s also been a really good quarter in terms of new favorite reads.
This was also the summer of Emily Henry for me. The first Emily Henry book I read was “People We Meet on Vacation” and while I liked it, it wasn’t a new favorite. I don’t know if the hype got to me but I know that I definitely need to give that book a reread after reading and loving Emily Henry’s other works this summer. I think everyone knows about Emily Henry’s latest release, “Book Lovers”, but boy oh boy, did I fall in love with it. I loved how steamy it was and how it explored a strained sibling relationship. I also thought the conversation around grief and loss and how our main character Nora dealt with it was so tastefully done. I loved how this book played with romance tropes and how we followed a main character who was really headstrong and career driven. It just felt very realistic.
The only reason I don’t have “Book Lovers” in my Q2 Winners List is because I ended up reading “Beach Read” and it spoke to me. It made me fall in love with writing and reading again. June was a pretty rough reading month for me. I think I only read two books that month. After I finished “Beach Read” and cried out my heart, I knew that whatever I read next, I wanted to feel the way “Beach Read” made me feel. Yes, my reading significantly slowed down, but is that bad if I end up finding books like this that give words to feelings I couldn’t describe before?
“Every Summer After” was a complete surprise read for me and it’s quickly become my favorite. There are two elements that made this such a surprising read. The first element is the fact that this is a debut book. I’ve listened to a couple of podcasts that interviewed Carley Fortune and got a real insight into her writing process for this book and it honestly is amazing. It sounds like the words just came out of her and they came out fast and good because the publishing process for this book was insanely fast because of how great the writing was in the author’s first draft.
“Every Summer After” follows the coming of age of our main characters Percy and Sam in a small town near a lake in Canada. We follow them as they become friends, grow up, and explore their relationship in a non-platonic way. It’s amazing. This is the perfect summer book because the writing is so descriptive, you can feel the stickiness of childhood summers and growing up, making mistakes, and finding friends and lovers.
The second element that made my love for this book surprising is that there’s mention of cheating. I personally am not a fan of cheating but somehow, somehow, I still loved this book. This book is just so heart warming to read and just as heart breaking at times.
I don’t think it’s surprising that “The House in the Cerulean Sea” also was added as a favorite of Quarter 2. It’s definitely a new comfort read. I know that this book is pitched as a love story and I want to make it clear that it’s not necessarily a love story between two adults. It’s a love story of a man and a group of misunderstood children as much as it is a love story between two men. It’s absolutely heart warming and it’s something that everyone should read. There’s not a single character who you won’t fall in love with. I picked up this book when things were super stressful and I was so incredibly happy to lose myself in this world for a couple of hours.
Quarter 1, I discovered dystopian/apocalyptic novels and in Quarter 2 I discovered mystery novels. I’d say that thrillers and mystery novels are my least read genres. So I was really surprised by how much I loved “The Maid”. This book follows a maid named Molly who works at a fancy hotel. One day, when she’s going about doing her work, Molly stumbles across a situation that accidentally gets her wrapped up in a murder investigation. What do I mean by “accidentally”? Well, you’ll have to read to find out. This book was so heartwarming and I really enjoyed how fast and easy this was to read. I wouldn’t go in expecting a thriller or an intense murder investigation. While I don’t read cozy mysteries, I would dare say that this leans more towards a cozy mystery than a thriller.
The most disappointing reads of Quarter 2 have to be the Bridgerton Books, particular “Romancing Mister Bridgerton” and “An Offer From a Gentleman”.
My oh MY, these book were mind boggling. I think they were extra disappointing because of how much I enjoyed the second book, “The Viscount Who Loved Me”. Books 3 and 4 of the Bridgerton series were really flat with a barely there plot. At times, they felt more like an outline that are in need of a lot more padding, drama, and tension to be considered full fledged novels. To be fair though, “Romancing Mister Bridgerton” had a lot more plot, drama, and tension, but the ending was so anti-climactic. Also, Collin Bridgerton, the Bridgerton sibling we follow in “Romancing Mister Bridgerton” was such a weird character and I spent most of the book with my jaw dropped as to why the author decided to go forward with his character’s main personality. I just don’t understand why you’d make a huge aspect of the main character’s personality to be hangry. His entire personality was literally that he gets unexpectedly mad and that’s always hungry. Hangry! Why? Just why?
A Little Roundup:
What books did you enjoy in Quarter 1 and Quarter 2?