Summer Reading Challenge Pt. 3: What I Read in August!

Man, this summer has just been... a LOT. 

Hence why I haven't been able to muster up the ability to tell you about the end of my Summer Reading Challenges until we're nearly halfway through the month of September. I'm experiencing the brain scramblies, as a result of a pseudo marathon of travel and social engagements, and the only thing more ravaged than my mental health, to-do list and Fall planning, is my digestive system. Things have been full chaos city in my life for the last month or so, and some days it feels like the only tape binding my broken parts together is a combination of iced caramel coffees and the fact that I actually get to sleep in my own bed every night from here to the end of 2023. 

(I washed my bedding AND two week's worth of travel laundry yesterday. It took all day to get done, and when I went to bed last night, between those crisply-folded, freshly-laundered sheets, I truly felt the bone-deep-exhausting reward of self care. I nearly cried.)

But it's time to move on. Fall, in my mind, is already here, even though the calendar insists that it doesn't start until a week and a half from now, for some obviously incorrect reason. The local school district I volunteer with has already begun their academic year; friends have begun asking me what my plans are for Halloween and my 30th Birthday next month. This morning, the Dancing with the Stars cast list for this season was announced, and tonight, I'm headed to the local state fair to see one of my favorite country bands in concert with some of my cousins. 

Autumn has arrived. And yet, until I get this blogpost - and its inevitable successor, which we'll address in a second - published, August keeps hanging over my head like a disgruntled cloud that just wants to rain, already. 

So. Let's talk about August. 

What I Read in June

What I Read in July

The final month of Summer, stymied by a packed travel schedule but desperate to gain at least ONE Bingo before I resigned myself to September, I ended up reading EIGHT books... however. However! Only three of them were quote-unquote NORMAL books. 

With about ten days left in the month, I suffered something akin to a mental breakdown and read five Romance novels across five days, and ended up finding two of the best Romance novels I've read in the last few years. So. That's going to have to be a different kind of blogpost, you know? 

But I still have those three "normal" books that I read. I ended up being able to count two of the Romance novels on my regular Seattle Public Library Book Bingo Summer Reading Challenge, too, and altogether, I not only managed to get one Bingo... I got three! 

While I'm still busy trying to recover from the effort, why not read some of the reviews I wrote for them? 

Bingo Square: "Debut Essays or Short Stories"

Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self Delusion, Jia Tolentino

A funny, self-deprecating - but nonetheless salient and well-researched - collection of personal essays, covering topics like reality television, coming of age in the Internet, and the wedding industrial complex, with a unique and feminist edge. 

The first time I attempted this dense, yet conversational, collection of essays, I was suffering from an extended panic attack while flying home alone from LA in October of '21. I had been mislead in the idea that it would make for beneficial vacation reading, but the jaded and often pessimistic discussions of gender and culture were only adding to my distress the higher we flew. I ended up bailing out 30 pages in, and decided to listen to the Beetlejuice musical cast album for the umpteenth time instead. 

It was only when I saw the square "Debut Essays" on my Summer Book Bingo card that I figured I would have to give this particular hardcover another chance. Even so, I absolutely dreaded returning to it. 

Then I saw it pop up on one of my social feeds, in an Instagram post shared by a friend, in a list of reads titled "Books to Read After Watching Barbie," and that comparison felt way more apt and appropriate than calling it a beach read. Barbie's gentle perspectives on constructions of femininity, impacts of the patriarchy, and coming of age in a complicated girlhood, felt salient to the topics discussed in the collection, and approaching it within that mindset made the whole thing feel far easier to digest. Instead of feeling overly dismissive or glib, the author's voice felt more like an extended vent session with a friend, after a particularly spirited Gender and Women's Studies quiz section. 

The fact that one of the final essays in the collection involved an exploration of the author's views on marriage felt particularly notable to me, as I was on vacation with my sibling, her partner (fiancé), and her partner's family, in celebration of the engagement (Yes, I did end up reading it on vacation after all). The conversations that resulted from me sharing quotes from the floor of our shared bedroom lost no degree of authority for all that they also made us laugh. 

It's complicated, being a woman. 

Four stars. 

Bingo Square: "Includes a Recipe"

Something Old, Something New, Tamar Adler

A joyful exploration and authoritative retrospective on vintage and antique recipes that a well-versed chef believes should find their way back into dinnertime rotation. 

I've been a part of the growing appreciation for Tamar Adler's impeccable first book - An Everlasting Meal - for several years now, including at a time when securing the elusive ten-year-old hardcovers felt impossible enough to consider "misplacing" the only one I could find (the solo copy on offer from our local library system. I have a paperback copy now, though, so don't worry for my immortal soul). The near cult fanaticism many feel for that installment in her canon of work made me giddy enough to pick up this next title shortly after its paperback release, then preserve it for the occasion where I could fully read it at my leisure, with a bundle of page flags nearby. 

The "Includes a Recipe" square on my Summer Book Bingo card certainly helped promote this decision. 

SOSN carries the same meditative elegance present in AEM, the same blissful confidence that you, too, can cook like this, punctuated by flashes of Adler's characteristic humor. The topics, however, couldn't be further from each other: whereas Everlasting's gastronomic perspectives make you feel like you will never waste a scrap of food ever again, SOSN dives into antiquated gustatory novelties with gusto. I have no room to talk - I literally have a monthly cooking newsletter dedicated to exorcising trapped recipes from decades-old cookbooks, myself - but seeing her glom onto recipes for aspic, souffles, and seafood served with a variety of surnames attached, did feel a little detached from her previous theses. 

What seemed unequivocally true, regardless, is that Adler seems to be having an excellent time while doing it. It doesn't quite live up to my levels of appreciation for its predecessor, but then again, very few selections of Food Writing do. I have a favorite within M.F.K. Fisher's ranks, as well, and the comparison feels worthy of merit. 

Three and a half stars. 

Bingo Square: "Trans or Nonbinary Author"

I Kissed Shara Wheeler, Casey McQuiston

After the popular and intelligent daughter of their private Christian high school's principal goes missing a few weeks before graduation, those she left behind - her boyfriend, the boy next door, and our main character, her closest rival for the valedictorian title - piece together a series of intricate clues she left behind, to figure out why she left... and where she's hiding now. 

I was an early adopter and fan of McQuiston's debut novel - Red, White and Royal Blue, which was also adapted into a very popular Amazon Prime movie this past summer - and have continued to be a fan of it in the years since... but their other novels haven't really interested me. One Last Stop seemed a tad convoluted, and this, I Kissed Shara Wheeler, trod a little too close to John Green's Paper Towns to capture my interest... something that, funny enough, the characters own up to the context of the story. 

However, the continued goading of my younger sister finally got me to commit (as talking about novels we have in common has become one of our favorite phone conversational topics now that she's established in California for good). And, of course, the Book Bingo square for a "Nonbinary Author" made for a compelling argument. And it was a title I already had on my shelves, thanks, of course, to the aforementioned sister who had abandoned it in my keeping.

To jump to the end, and provide some high-key spoilers, I was fairly disappointed. Because I was already acquainted with McQuiston's authorial voice and subject matter, most of the plot felt fairly predictable: in both an "obviously those two characters are in love with each other" and an "obviously those two other characters are in love with each other" kind of way. Obviously if the main character mentioned her penchant for "megabitch" villains who fall for the hero, then her archnemesis will be revealed to be a secret megabitch who's obsessed with her. Obviously. This all made each "plot twist" revelation the kind of thing that sent me pedaling backwards, thinking to myself, Wait, why is this a reveal? I thought we knew that already. 

Shara, for all that she was seemingly the focus of the entire novel, also felt bizarrely two-dimensional, like one of the Ashleys from Recess, or any other bitchy queen bee of the '90s or early '00s, crossed with the competitive streak of Tracy Flick. The final act conflict - the revelation that the principal had been taking bribes to alter peoples' grades - felt like McQuiston had simply popped on the news to determine how to resolve character conflicts, in ways that actually didn't end up meaningful to the overall narrative. Parts of the resolution felt unreasonable, or unrealistic. 

And yet, there were absolutely parts that made me laugh. I believe it's McQuiston's first YA attempt, which explains why the whole thing feels ripe for another Amazon Prime adaptation. I just might not watch that one. 

Two and a half stars. 

So, those are my August reviews. Except, of course, the five Romance reviews I read in the space of one week, which I'll talk about some time in the next few days... and the Paranormal Romance I DNF'd. That Big Box is due for another update soon, I think. 

Hopefully I'll manage to wrap up August sometime before October starts. 

What did you end up reading this summer? Any guesses for what some of those Romances are? Let me know, in the comments below!