I figured since I’ve been a more voracious reader this year than I’ve been since pre-college that I would do monthly updates with what I’ve read.
Last year, I started using my Goodreads account more seriously and participated in 2014’s Reading Challenge where you set your own reading goal and track your progress. This year, I decided to go with 32 books which now seems like such a small number. However, in 2014 I went with a goal of 26 books. Which would be a book about every 2 weeks. I surpassed it by a lot. 45 books, but 25 of them were single issue comics, picture books from the comic shop or books of photographs with blurbs that I re-read in order to decide if I should konmari them out of my life.
So really, I feel like I didn’t meet my goal.
But this year I was reinvigorated, and I set up some rules for myself: prose books count no matter what, trade paperbacks and graphic novels count. Single issues of comics do not. I have a massive TBR stack of comic related bits (actually a basket from Home Goods) and I am steadily making my way through. And that’s how I read 30 books by the end of June.
So, onto the books!
Severed – Scott Snyder, Scott Tuft (w.) Attila Futaki (i.)
4/5 Honestly, I’m only about 75% sure that I read this in June. For some reason Goodreads didn’t save the “date read” when I added it. This honestly wasn’t my favorite, I gave it 4 stars because I thought the art was phenomenal, and the story was good. You could see what was coming from a mile away, but I feel that way about most horror.
X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills – Chris Claremont (w.), Brent Anderson (i.)
3/5 God Loves, Man Kills was my first foray into X-Men ever. Seriously. I’m incredibly ambivalent about a lot of superhero stuff and this was no different. I don’t really care for the art (though there are some great panels of Nightcrawler.) But I did read this for Ladies’ Night (which fell on 6/18) so it sparked some great and lively topical/timely discussions which made me appreciate the book more. But really, Nightcrawler is a lil’ cutie and Kitty Pryde is cool.
The Girls of Murder City: Fame, Lust, and the Beautiful Killers who Inspired Chicago – Douglas Perry
3/5 This came up as a recommendation on Goodreads from The Devil in the White City I believe. I wound up borrowing the Kindle version from my local library and somehow managed to miss that it was written by a guy. Which is fine, but in a book about murderesses and women journalists, I think a woman could have created a better tone. The bits about the murderesses were much more interesting to me than the history of Chicago as a play and I stopped reading as soon as I hit the afterword which was about 75% way into the book.
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children – Ransom Riggs
4/5 I had been wanting to read this for a long time, like many years long time but I had never gotten around to it. I immediately downloaded the library Kindle copy when I saw that it was available via my library. I really did enjoy this book and I believe I finished it in 2 or 3 days (which is an accomplishment only because I read it on days when I was working.) It is a pretty easy read, though I still get some of the characters and their peculiarities mixed up. It’s a bit dark, but also fun and is a solid blend of spooky, adventure and mystery. As a (very) minor collector of antique photos, I think that the idea of framing a story around a series of them is pretty fantastic. And if you were wondering, the images rendered just fine on a Kindle Keyboard.
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