Welcome back to my 2022 Book Bracket! Today, we are deciding on my favourite book from the months of May and June! Yay!
As you can see above, I read two books in May, and seven in June, so the graph has been altered a little bit to make the winner stand out a bit more (it was kinda hard to fit it- I wanted to keep the image the same size, but also still wanted the books to be visible).
Anyway, in May I read The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris and The Ghosts of Thorwald Place by Helen Power. I enjoyed both books quite a bit, but I am going to give the edge to The Other Black Girl. I read it for the Horror Spotlight Readathon on Discord. It was about a woman, Nella, working in the publishing industry that is used to being the only black woman in the office. But then a new black woman is hired, and at first she seems like the perfect friend and ally. But there is more going on, and Nella might be in danger. It was an interesting read, and I enjoyed a perspective that I, as a white woman, do not have myself. Learning about natural hair through the book was fun as well.
The Ghosts of Thorwald Place by Helen Power was about a woman who dies in the lift of her apartment building, and she spends the rest of the story haunting the lift and surrounding apartments. I liked that she was tethered to the lift, so when it was called by a living person, she was dragged along with it, and could only explore in a radius from it, on the floor the lift rests on. Everyone in the building has their own secrets and mysteries, including the ghost, Rachel. Learning about what happened to her in her past, and the lead up to her murder, is fascinating. All up though, I feel I took more away from The Other Black Girl, so that is my May winner!
In June I read seven books, but a few of them were quite short. I was in a big reading mood that month, which I didn’t want to waste. The first book I read was Read Harder, a collection of articles from the Book Riot website, which I love. I feel like this book was a little disappointing however. The articles were taken wholesale, typos and all, and put into a book. I hope that if they do this again, they at least do some more editing.
Sundial by Catriona Ward was… wild. I started reading it in May, but I took my time with it, because there was a bit of animal cruelty in it that I struggled with. So I made sure when I sat down with it, I was in a good headspace. The characters were interesting, deeply flawed beings, which you know I love. The mystery surrounding the story and what is happening with the children in the family was very involving. It was definitely a contender for favourite in June.
A House by the Sea by Ambrose Ibsen was a very comfortable read for me. It had been a while since I’d read something by him, and he is one of my basically guaranteed to love authors, so after the intensity of Sundial, it was a really nice and easy read for me. I liked the haunting, and the other creature was creepy and eerie. I loved the setting as well, a beautiful house by the sea, with plenty of room for the whole family. Alas, it is the house that the entire town avoids because of its ‘curse’.
Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw was unfortunately an extremely disappointing read for me. Looking at reviews, it was a very divisive one. You either loved it or hated it, and I really wanted to be one of the people who loved it. It was set in a crumbly Heian era (ie, my favourite historical Japanese era) manor, in the modern day. There was a vengeful ghost, strange creatures, and a setting I should have loved. But the setting felt under utilised, as was the ghost. The characters we were following were kinda terrible, and their petty drama took up way too much time for such a short story.
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie was my next read. This is a classic in the murder mystery genre, and I’m sure you know of Agatha Christie at the very least. This was her first novel, where a group of people were invited to a private island, and then were picked off one by one. I read this with the Fanciful Husband, and we tried to solve the murders together. We… did not succeed.
Next up was The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James. This was my second book of hers, and I loved it even more than The Haunting of Maddie Clare. This book has two perspectives that take place in different generation timelines. In the modern timeline, a girl tries to solve the disappearance of her aunt, who we follow in the past timeline. Who herself is trying to solve the murders of several girls in the town. Both these women work at the Sun Down Motel, and this eerie, outdated, and often empty motel is, you guessed it. Haunted. This is another book where the ghosts really enhance the stories of the living, and the overarching feminist story was brilliant.
Then I read A Ruin of Roses by K.F. Breene. I borrowed it through Prime Reading, to shake up my reading, and I kind of liked it? It was an erotica retelling of Beauty and the Beast, and I love Beauty and the Beast, so I was interested in that aspect. But the sex scenes were… a little uncomfortable. The characters were constantly in denial about how attracted they were to each other, that it became a repetitive tug of war between their heads and their hearts. I was expecting that once they gave in, that would be it, but they just kept pulling away from each other. So that was tiring. I have started book two, because the overall story, while not very prevalent, is interesting.
In the month of June, two books were up for that month’s favourite position. Those books were Sundial, and The Sun Down Motel. And The Sun Down Motel came out on top. Of June, and also of May, to become my favourite of those two months!
Farewell Fanciful Friends, and join me again tomorrow for July and August!
Rebecka O'Malley 