august reads.

A Gathering of Shadows, by Victoria Schwab
A Conjuring of Light, by Victoria Schwab
These are the followup books to A Darker Shade of Magic, which was the last book I finished in July.  Book two started out with an amazing look into what Lila is up to, and I freakin' loved it.  I'd read a million books about Pirate Lila.  This book also featured a competition, which is one of my favorite tropes and I was fully down for it.  Admittedly, I spent a lot of this book waiting for a Kell+Lila reunion, but I was not expecting that SUPER HOT reunion between another pairing (it reunion for the characters, but we were seeing them together for the first time).  Another couple to ship is never a bad thing!
Book three had some serious zombie vibes and lots of character deaths - some of which were surprising and sad, others were pretty obvious.  The ending was great, though I am a bit sad for how one character ended up... I would have liked them to be happy, but I think they were at peace with where they ended up.  All in all: a great series, and I'd definitely buy physical copies of the books!

Teen Titans Raven, by Kami Garcia
This was a graphic novel featuring pre-TT Raven, aka Rachel Roth.  I liked it just okay, but I think I would have liked it better if I didn't have to wait for the rest of the team's stories, which appear to be rolling out VERY slowly (Garfield's comes out in a year).  I really liked the NOLA backdrop, and Max was a great supporting character.  I wasn't super sad to see Raven's relationship end, mostly because I will forever ship BBRAE. 🎶if i don't gots my baby all i do is go crae🎶

We Hunt the Flame, by Hafsah Faizal
I was really looking forward to this book, and I'd been on a wait list for months.  And unfortunately, this ended up being a pretty big disappointment for me.  I felt like there was a lot of wasted space in the first third of the book that didn't further the plot or contribute to world-building, and it all could have been condensed A LOT.  I thought the most compelling parts were all the scenes when Zafira and Nasir interacted, and they didn't even meet until 170 pages in.  I pretty much wanted to DNF the entire time, but I stuck it out and don't feel like it paid off at all.  I was really bummed about this one, but it just fell flat for me.

Six of Crows, by Leigh Bardugo
Crooked Kingdom, by Leigh Bardugo
I already read these two earlier this year, but we started listening to the audiobook of SoC on our trip because I have been dying for Jon to read this series all year.  I ended up finishing both of these books in via audiobook, and damn this series is SO GOOD.
At the end I was in that post-CK sadness haze and I decided a few things:
(1) Kaz is the ultimate DDNB and his anti-hero-ness might be the death of me.
(2) The lost Darling in this series might be the most gut-wrenching loss of any Darling in any book I have ever read??  Jon and I actually had a little discussion about it and what purpose it served and fell into that hole of daydreaming what could have been if the Darling did not die.
(3) If Jon didn't like this series, I promised him all kinds of dramatics on my part.  Thankfully, he liked the series too, so I didn't have to tell him he was dead to me.
(4) I would actually die for another book with these characters and then demand a copy to be sent to me in the afterlife.
(5) The bathroom counter scene in CK is better than any sex scene in any book ever.

The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern
I have heard so many great things about this book, and I was excited to finally get around to it.  This book was really beautifully written, the prose was gorgeous and the story and settings were pretty magical.  It was somehow not confusing, even having been written from many perspectives and many points in time.  (I've yet to pinpoint why some books written this way are really hard for me to read and others give me no trouble at all.)  I do have to say though, that I didn't really feel like this book fit  its description, which I found on Goodreads and basically any bookseller website.  I suppose this worked a little bit against me, and I found myself wanting more - or at least wanting what I was expecting from the book blurb.  Even so, I really enjoyed this book.

Spin the Dawn, by Elizabeth Lim
This book was just okay.  I really wanted the tailors' competition to last much longer than it did; I think I would have liked the competition to be one whole book, and then the three-pronged journey be a second book.  I found the romance to be just fine, it was sweet and straightforward (though I was waiting for a betrayal on the part of the love interest for some time at the beginning).  I think what I wanted most was a more descriptive look at Maia.  I didn't really have any idea what she looked like, save for her hair and and one mentioning, her freckles.  Lastly, did EVERYONE know she was a girl the entire time?  It seemed like not a single person fell for her disguise.

Stardust, by Neil Gaiman
I liked this book enough, but I really would have preferred it to be drawn out more.  It definitely read like a movie, and I just found myself wanting more of everything, every place they visited, every character that was introduced, etc.  But I can acknowledge that the writing style of this particular story is VERY fairy-tale-esque.  Which is to say, telling precisely what happened but not expounding more than is necessary.  I just like the expounding, I think.  My favorite part might have been the twist with the bird-slave from the very beginning.  Lastly, I found the parting conversation between Yvaine and the Witch-Queen to be very... odd?  It definitely left me scratching my head and more than a little bit unsatisfied.

House of Salt and Sorrows, by Erin A. Craig
I tentatively put this book on my TBR, not knowing for sure if I found the premise interesting enough via the book blurb.  Then I came into work last week and saw that it was a new addition to our collection, so I checked it out.  And I surprised myself by really liking this book!  Maybe even loving it?  It's part murder mystery, part ghost story, part period drama with all of those old worries about finding a husband.  The oceanside setting was beautiful, and I loved one character's observation about being able to taste salt in everything.  And the cover!  It is so incredibly beautiful, I found myself absentmindedly rubbing the embossed lettering while reading.  A great standalone, and yay for unexpected five-star ratings!

Eliza and Her Monsters, by Francesca Zappia
I don't read a lot of contemporary YA fiction, but when I read the premise of this book I knew I would like it.  Which is why I was a huge dummy for deciding to start the book at 10:00 at night, because I didn't stop reading until after 1:00 in the morning.  I loved this book so much, and it made me feel all of the emotions.  I laughed, I teared up (as close as I get to crying), I ached, I panicked and stressed (lordy, Eliza's parents) and I felt like I related on a deeper level than with other books.  But what I felt the most at the end of this book was how much I wished I had as much direction or purpose with my interests in high school as Eliza and Wallace did. Or like, that I didn't feel embarrassed about the stuff I liked.  A million stars to this book.

City of Bones, by Cassandra Clare
I started out really wanted to like this book.  Which is to say, I really wanted to like this world because there are like 15 books in it, and I'm always down for getting sucked into a new series.  But even starting out that way did not stop this book from being a huge letdown.  The truth is, I knew from the first chapter that I didn't like it.  The prose was so lackluster, all of the words seemed to be just regurgitated from the author's mind, and that old rule of "Show, Don't Tell" was like, fully ignored.  Besides that, the characters were really one-dimensional and I did not feel a connection to a single one.  I should have DNF'd this book, but I kept reading, hoping that anything would change for the better.  Instead, I got a series of twists that went from bad to worse - the last twist of which nearly made me throw the book across the room in frustration.  Few things are worse than a twist that you know, at some point later on in the series, will be "untwisted" by yet another revelation.
I haven't given a one-star rating to a book since Three Dark Crowns two years ago, and even that book I felt deserved that star for what was actually, a really great twist at the end.  I'm not sure what the one star for City of Bones even is for.  The acknowledgement of how many other people seem to like it (it's got a crazy high rating on Goodreads)?  Because you can't rate a book and give it zero stars?

Grave Mercy, by Robin LaFevers
Again, we have a female protagonist who has been trained/is being trained as an assassin, but THIS time she is trained by nuns at a convent.  Assassin Nuns!  I love it.  The political maneuverings in this book were a bit exhausting, but I thought it was made up for with a compelling enough cast.  Ismae and Duval are both likable characters, and it was fun to watch them grow to like each other.
I had a slight issue with this, and it was that I thought that this three-book series followed Ismae the entire time.  In fact, each book follows one of three students of the convent.  This misunderstanding was very confusing for me, because I felt like everything was wrapping up or happening much too quickly for a trilogy.  If I'd known Ismae's story was just in the one book, I probably would have thought the pacing was just fine.

They Called Us Enemy, by George Takei
What a great piece of art that details such a horrible time in history, while also warning of its repetition occurring today.  So many parts of Takei's story were so sad, and seeing him experience it as a child and seeing some of it with wonderment and excitement was particularly heartbreaking.  Even his dad's statement about American Democracy still being the best of all the government options was a little crushing to read.  It definitely made me wonder what works of art and literature will eventually emerge from today's imprisonments, though I imagine they will be much more harrowing - throughout TCUE I kept thinking, thank goodness he had his parents the whole time.

The Kiss of Deception, by Mary E Pearson
The Heart of Betrayal, by Mary E Pearson
The Beauty of Darkness, by Mary E Pearson
The premise of book one hooked me right away.  A princess who flees her betrothed (whom she has never met) on her wedding day, and later unknowingly meets him in the new town where she has decided to restart her life?  I'M IN.  The problem for me entered when she met her jilted fiancé at the same time she met an assassin who was sent to kill her (which she also was unaware of at the meeting).  The problem was not the assassin's presence in the book.  It was that I literally had the prince and the assassin mixed up for most of the book.  I thought that Rafe was the assassin and Kaden was the prince up until the actual assassin (Kaden) made his move on Lia and then I was like WAIT WHAT.  Some of the story was even told from each of the boys' perspectives, and not one time did another character refer to them by their names.  I know this because I was looking!  I wasn't sure from the very beginning who was Rafe or Kaden, and I was looking for clues!  Eventually I just guessed and went with what seemed to make sense to me, but apparently I was wrong.
Here's the thing: By the end of book one I was like, did I like this story better when I thought that Rafe was the assassin?  Reader, I think I did.
Book two had me a bit bored.  There were some moves and manipulations that I desperately wanted to see Lia make towards a certain character, and I didn't get it.  The attempt at a love triangle had me rolling my eyes and I honestly would rather have not had it (I usually will always choose No Love Triangles, but especially here.)  Rafe was much less interesting to me in The Heart of Betrayal, and I strongly think it is because I was still reeling from the mixup I made in The Kiss of Deception.
Book three had me extremely annoyed for most of it, especially when Rafe becomes a complete ass but Lia's breath still catches and her blood freezes whenever he walks into a room.  UGH.  But the battle was good and it was my favorite part of the book.   The ending was cheesy as hell.
Overall, I liked the series.  A part of me wants to reread The Kiss of Deception, but this time knowing for sure which boy is which.  The other part of me wants to read an alt version of This Kiss of Deception wherein Rafe was the assassin and Kaden was the prince, haha.