Time is a Construct and So Are Books

What I read in July

Wow was July a weird month. It simultaneously felt faster and slower. The first half of the month dragged; then the back half sped by. One of my friends/MFA classmates called it ‘Cursed July’ due to the amount of insanity that occurred. My sense of time has been warped since the COVID quarantines, and I still visit the Covid Standard Time website every once and a while to see what day it is. (Today is March 1983rd, 2020.)

Last month was a real struggle to make it to my 8 book monthly goal. Did I need to read 8 books? No, but that’s the number I need to hit to keep on track for 100 books by the end of the year. Again, is anyone making me do this? No. Is this just additional pressure I’m putting on myself? I can neither confirm nor deny this.

Alas, I did not make 8 books. I only read 7. And it was a real struggle to do just that. Again: Cursed July.

As always, unless otherwise noted, all books read were physical and all graphics are courtesy of the Storygraph.

What I Read in July

1. Cursed Under London by Gabby Hutchinson Crouch
   One of the books I got on my trip to London last November. The premise is: Elizabethan London, but with vampires, zombies, dragons and all sorts of other magical creatures wandering about. Lazare and Fang are both killed, but they’re undead, and they’re not zombies, which is confusing to everyone. This matters because there are two Londons: Upper London with humans, and Lower London, with magical creatures, and Lazare and Fang now belong in neither (technically.) Lazare and Fang team up (unwillingly) to investigate what’s going on. Gangs, found family, insane puns, and antics ensue. I read a physical copy, and there’s a sequel coming out later this year so I guess I’ll have to read it.

   

2. Slip by Mallary Tenore Tarpley
   I’m not going to say too much about Slip as I’ll have a review in Hippocampus that talks so much more about it. (You should go read it! I’ll let you know when it’s out.)¹ At a high level, Slip is a hybrid memoir that incorporates Mallary Tenore Tarpley’s experiences with an eating disorder, and her researched journalism on the state of treatment for eating disorders as they stand currently. There’s a lot more to it than that, so you should go read my review then go read the book. I received an ARC of this, and read it physically. It’s officially out today.
   (P.S. Both Mallary and her publicist Kathleen Schmidt have Substacks that you should also go read. Ok bye.)

3. Fan Service by Rosie Danan
   I’m not a big monster romance girlie; that’s never been my thing. So this is just pushing my limits, and I’m glad I tried something new (cough cough reading diversely for the win) because this is the most unhinged book I have read in ages and I was cackling the whole way through. This was my book club’s August read,² and my friend Jen and I were actually the ones to suggest it. Well, more accurately, I read a review that sounded great, and then shared it with Jen, then we banded together to (lovingly) bully the rest of our book club to read it. Here’s the review:

   ali_learns_to_read

   

   A post shared by @ali_learns_to_read

   Does that not sound absolutely fantastic?! I don’t rate books and even I rated this 5 stars. Anyways, Devin, former Hollywood heartthrob trying to reboot his career, wakes up one day to discover he’s a werewolf. This former child star doesn’t really have any idea what to do about it, so he goes to the experts: the moderator of the fan wiki for his definitely-not-Supernatural-inspired TV show. Alex lives in Florida and used to have a huge crush on Devin but now hates him because he was a jerk to her years ago. Absolute hijinks ensue, and despite the insanity of it all, there’s a lot of really sweet moments and emotional growth between the two of them. I don’t think I’ve highlighted so much of a book ever. As Ali Learns to Read says, 4 billion stars. I read this via digital library file.

4. The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco
   I cannot begin to explain the absolute whiplash I got from going from explicit werewolf smut to high fantasy YA. That doesn’t mean The Bone Witch wasn’t good though! It was - I just happened to hop from one end of the romance spectrum to the other and needed a moment to get my bearings. Tea³ discovers she’s a necromancer when she brings her dead brother back to life.⁴ She then leaves home to train as an asha, one of the rarefied women who can access and use magic. Asha are inspired by geisha, and there were a lot of different Asian cultures that influenced the countries and cultures of this book, which was a nice change of pace. There are two timelines going on though, and that can be a bit much to handle if you’re not used to that structure. I read a physical version of this book, specifically a special edition from Illumicrate.

5. The Heart Forger by Rin Chupeco
   Well, well, well, look how the turntables.

   

   Way back in my Reading Goal check in post earlier in July, I said I was going to read one book of a trilogy each month of this quarter (so July, August and September.) Did I do that? No, of course not. I got too into The Bone Witch series and since I own all three and have poor impulse control in this regard, I immediately started book 2 the second I finished book 1. Book 2 picks up right where Book 1 left off, and we journey with Tea and her Bard as she continues her journey. I literally cannot say more for spoilers, but the two timeline format continues into this book as well. Since I bought the trilogy as a set, this was also a physical version, special edition from Illumicrate.

6. Shadowglass, by Rin Chupeco
   Book 3 of The Bone Witch trilogy, and Tea’s adventures come to an end. I found this a fitting end to the saga, if not sad at times. The two timelines continue, and at times I thought it’d be nice to experience everything linearly but here we are. The end of one timeline of Book 3 then starts the other one in Book 1. Confused? All you need to know is it made me want to read the series over again so I could get everything in chronological order. Are we surprised I finished a whole series in a month? We should not be surprised. But hey, now I can cross another series off of my list for my reading goals! A big old party parrot for me. I once again read a physical, special edition of this book from Illumicrate.⁵

7. Penguin Lost, Andrey Kurov
   This was truly a wildcard last read for me. I read neither the French book I had started and was a quarter of the way through, nor the other vampire book my friends want me to read.⁶ Instead, I read this book by a Ukrainian author about a penguin. Stay with me here. I read the first book, Death and the Penguin, back in 2023, and at the time knew there was a sequel and flagged it on Libby as something to read, but then never did. I finished The Shadowglass midweek the last week of July and needed a quick read to finish up the month and attempt (and fail) to make 8 books. Did you need to know any of this? No, but now you do. Anyways, Death and the Penguin is about a man who adopts a penguin. Oh he’s also an obituary writer at a Kiev newspaper, and isn’t it strange that everyone he writes obituaries for somehow ends up dead? Then the man and his penguin go to their funeral? Anyways this was book 2, and we are following Viktor as he tries to recuperate Misha the Penguin, and it involves traveling about to Antarctica, post Soviet Kiev and Moscow and Chechnya and the whole thing borders on the absurd. As close as you can get to fantastical while remaining within real world constructs. I read it on Libby, so that’s another book crossed off of my library goal for the year.

You know what’s once again not on this list? West. I’m going to read it in August, I promise. I am literally hurting no one but myself, but that’s not the point. No one is holding me to this except me, but I am a completionist and need to know what happens. I also read no French books or books on Everand this month, so I will need to reach 2 of each next month. Really a banner month, here. My friend was right: cursed July it was.

No New Books™️ Challenge

I cannot tell you how thrilled I am to to break this streak. Why? Horny vampires, that’s why!! The new book is coming out today. Does it make it better or worse that I’m going to buy the new books with a gift card at the bookstore across the street from my house? Further, since it’s been nearly 50 days since I’ve bought a book, I have created quite a stockpile of books that I will immediately order. It’ll be like Christmas morning over here tomorrow.

• Longest streak: 38 days (January 1st - February 6th)

• Last streak: 14 days (May 7th -20th)

• Current streak: 49 days (June 18th - Present)

Mug Moment of the Week

Another week, another mug. Mugs are a renewable resource here at The Chaotic Reading headquarters: they will never end.

Anyways, there is one way (and one way only) to take a picture of this week’s mug:

Truly - how else am I supposed to capture this mug?? I’ll include another view because I’m nice like that.

This is from Party Mouth, a local potter in Boston. I already showcased one of their mugs (the Feral one) a few week back, and here is its sister. Party Mouth has lots of other mouthy mugs, so I encourage you to peruse their website. Also I know absolutely nothing about clay but this mug is very tactile and I like it a lot. I’m sure that says something specific about the type of clay and kiln used, but I have no idea what that is.

Tune in next week for whatever chaos I decide to get involved with then.

1. I thought it would have been today but here we are.

2. And we’re discussing it tomorrow night.

3. A gal after my own heart.

4. This is not a spoiler; it happens within the first 20 pages.

5. It’s almost as if I bought the whole trilogy at once! (Sarcasm)

6. So I guess I’m reading those in August now?