June wasn’t the greatest month of reading for me personally, coming in at only 5 (and a half – we will get to that one in a bit). I struggle with summer and storm anxiety. Unfortunately this June was a really nasty month of storms and storm warnings … hence less energy for readings. But here is what I did accomplish:
1. The Bride Test 4*: June started out on a high note with The Bride Test. I had high expectations for this one because The Kiss Quotient will be one of my favs of 2019. You can read my full review here, but simply, Helen Hoang is a master of writing intelligent, heartfelt romances and this one was no exception.
2. The Unhoneymooners 4*: Technically I rounded this up from 3.5 and you can read why here. I might have been a little picky with this one having just read The Bride Test before it, but it was an overall enjoyable, light, and very summery romance.
3. The Caged Queen 3*: This one hurt. I loved The Last Namsara. I recommend it to everyone … but it’s sequel companion novel just didn’t have enough meat on its bones. Everything was thin and underdeveloped … you can read more here.
4. City of Girls 4*: Started out slow for me and remained to be oddly paced, but I really liked this in the end. If you are prepared to take your time with it, the payoff is worth it. Excellent conversations in here about women, being a human, being a good but flawed human, hard decisions and just growing up. Read my full review here.
5. We Hunt the Flame: Technically this is a “DNF” … for now. I will likely come back to this but it just wasn’t grabbing me. I struggled with the constant use of Arabic terminology that had me constantly flipping to the massive glossary just to understand what is going on. Combined with hard to pronounce names & places that also had me flipping to the pronunciation guide just broke up the pace of an already dragging plot. I made to about 150 pages and just nothing had really happened. So it’s “on pause”.
6. Heaven, Texas 3.5*: To break up the rut We Hunt the Flame had me in, I threw in a romance novel from my fav romance author – Susan Elizabeth Phillips. While this is still a great romance it wasn’t my favourite she has done, unfortunately. I struggled with the machismo of the leading man … I mean, he was a former pro football player and the “macho man” was part of the facade, but at times it was really grating. Since this is a dated novel from the early nineties, I struggled with some sexist writing that has thankfully been put to rest since then.
