August Reviews

RIP the end of summer-- I was traveling and then immediately fell ill, so this is several days late and put together with a foggy brain. Godspeed to me, I'll miss reading outside in the sun.

That Way Madness Lies: Fifteen of Shakespeare's Most Notable Works Reimagined edited by Dahlia Adler

I love Shakespeare and I love retellings, and so when I picked this one up at the library sale all those months ago, I figured this would be a fun read.

And since it's a collection of short stories, I can't really do a summary of them all, but I liked that it was split by type-- comedy, sonnet, tragedy, and late romance. It was also clearly labeled which play each was based on, and most I knew but some I didn't, and it was fun to find familiar and unfamiliar in each retelling. They were all different, and while I had ones I liked more, they all carried an energy of renewal and insight, looking at a story centuries old and finding new things to do with it. And I appreciated some of the modernized takes some of the authors had, bringing in marginalized voiced and ideas and stories in a respectful and interesting way.

Overall, I think this was a very well done anthology of retellings.

Twelfth Knight by Alexene Farol Follmuth

So irritated because I wrote a really great review of this book and now I can't find it, so you're getting the much shorter version written as I'm putting this review together, trying not to pass out at my computer. I've read other books by Follmuth but under her pen name, Olive Blake, and while I can see some similarities knowing they're the same person, the styles and choices are very different. Both very good, but I can absolutely see why she chose to write under two different names.

Vi is just trying to get through high school and have fun with her favorite online game, Twelfth Knight, and her DND quest. But entitled boys keep ruining things for her, and she's had enough. Jack just royally messed up his knee, and might have lost his football career and his girlfriend with it. Enter Vi, his potential way back to Olivia, and Twelfth Knight, the only thing that might save him from his recovery boredom and lack or purpose. Vi and Jack couldn't be more different, but when they connect on the Twelfth Knight server, there's the real chance for something, if Vi can come clean about who she really is.

This was such a fun exploration and love letter to nerdy culture and TTRPGs, while still recognizing some of the pitfalls girls encounter when trying to occupy those spaces. I also loved how it looked at what purpose feels like, especially when your whole life has been tied to one thing. Follmuth's writing style is crisp and punchy, with great character voices for both Vi and Jack.

This was my favorite book I read this month, and I can say that now because I'm writing it after having read the rest. 10/10, would recommend.

By Any Other Name by Erin Cotter

I picked this book to read because I had a bit of a Shakespeare theme going this month and figured I'd keep it going. Unfortunately it wasn't really my vibe.

Will Hughes is aging out of playing ladies in the 1585 theater scene, begging his friend Christopher Marlowe to get him a job, any job. He ends up with Lord James Bloomsbury, an unexpected noble in an otherwise untrustworthy class. But when Marlowe is murdered, Will must confront a past he ran from in the hopes of finding a future.

I don't know what it was about this book, but I was just not feeling it. And it went on for a very long time-- there are like four completely different storylines happening in this book, and each jump between them was rough for me, because it meant the book wasn't even close to being over yet.

It's a queer romance, but the narrator Will/Elias felt so tortured that I was just kind of sick of his voice just a couple chapters in. 

This feels very negative and I try to stand on the idea that every book is someone's favorite book, so I'm gonna stop here and just say it wasn't for me and move on.

Oona Out Of Order by Margarita Montimore

This book came at the recommendation of a friend who never misses, and while I doubted her a bit at the beginning, I did get to a place where I really enjoyed this book. Had to abandon the Shakespeare theme because I ran out of Shakespeare books, rip.

It's 1982, and at midnight on New Year's Eve, Oona will turn nineteen, her whole life ahead of her. Except, when the clock strikes midnight she wakes up in the body of her much older self, decades vanished. Every year, Oona drops into a different year of her life, living everything out of order. Through it all, she'll have to navigate the changing years and rediscover who she is each time.

This is a very creative premise, and each of the drop points chosen for the years we witness with Oona are so different and interesting. I will admit the first few leaps stressed me out real bad, but as Oona settled so did I, and I started enjoying the reveals and east eggs as they arrived. 

Overall this book turned out to be a lot of fun, but also very contemplative and reflective on time and youth and connections. 

Into The Mist by P. C. Cast

I got this book at the library sale months ago, and figured it was time to pick through my dwindling tbr. 

A group of teachers at a conference in Oregon witness bombs and mysterious green fog destroy life as they know it-- if men breathe in the fog they're killed, while the women are changed. They must band together with some rescued kids to make their way to a new safe place in the strange new world.

The premise for this is really interesting-- I like a supernatural biological changing apocalypse situation with a predominantly female society. But honestly the writing style felt overly-explainy, like Cast felt the need to have characters over explain every action or belief or thing they did, to the point of annoyance. And everyone talked like they wanted to be so so so clear there was no miscommunication, and used lingo that felt dated. The dialogue didn't feel different for each character, and the cast of characters was way too big to not have distinct voices. And beyond that it was super stilted dialogue, and every single mundane thing the characters did was documented or talked about-- like every time they had to pee it was a two page debate on where to stop to do it. 

And while I'm a huge fan of diversity in stories, this felt preachy and weird about certain topics that didn't really feel necessary. Like every chance the characters had they had to express some liberal opinion to prove they were better people than whoever else was involved. The villains also felt like caricatures of villainy-- there didn't feel like there was room for any gray morality, which is wild in the apocalypse when so much changes. It felt like buzzword feminism or advocacy, with a pointless use of micro aggressions and harmful terminology purely to remind or show us that the bad guys are bad, it just felt lazy and performative, especially when the all but like two characters are white.  

I almost stopped reading it several times, but figured once I hit the halfway point I could speed through the last of it. Will not be looking for the sequel, did not enjoy this one, would absolutely not recommend.

Six Angry Girls by Adrienne Kisner

I don't remember where this book came from but it was a fun read!

Raina has just been dumped by her longtime boyfriend and lost control of the drama department. Millie has just been kicked off her mock trial team to be replaced by a bunch of boys after doing all the work for three years. They're both angry and looking to try something new, so when Raina tells Millie she'd join an all girls team, Millie starts hunting for other girls to join. And it turns out when given the chance to use their voice, angry girls will get loud.

I thought this was super fun and a great show of local activism, support, and learning when to let go. Millie and Raina are both great protagonists to follow, and I liked the four other girls that join their team. Both Raina and Millie grow a lot over the course of the book, but most of it is realizing they can't let men control them or hold them back, that they have to go after what they want, even if it's new or intimidating. I also liked the knitting group that Raina joins and the advocacy she does with them, learning from the other women around her.

The writing style made it super easy to read, and I liked the creative choices with the chapter headers looking like court case files. It was maybe a little young for me, but I could easily see it being formative for some younger girls navigating a still unfair society. The pacing was great, and the topics felt timely.

Overall I had a lot of fun with this book.

And that's it! See you all next month!

Literary recommendation: reading Alexine Farol Follmuth's book made me think about Olive Blake again, so go read Master of Death if you haven't already

Media recommendation: so this is kind of an off the wall one, but there's a podcast called The Reading Bug Adventures that the children in my life I've recently spent a lot of time with are obsessed with, and after listening to a couple episodes with them I can say it's so cute and a great listen for any little readers in your life