July Reading Recap

July was a pretty productive reading month for me, although I didn't get quite as many books read as I did in June. Here's a recap of the books I read, and what I thought about each of them.

I'm not a huge fan of dual-timeline books, but this was interesting enough to make it worthwhile to read. In timeline 1, we meet a family and their friend who are trying to help their son who's suffering from severe PTSD after coming home from WWII. In timeline 2, we follow a Jewish girl as she and her family attempt to escape Germany before it becomes fully locked down under Hitler's rule.

Both storylines are difficult to read at times, as they illustrate the extreme hardship of war and the resulting affects on people's lives. I had to take a few breaks to deep breathe and let my nerves calm down during this book.

Well written, well researched.

Working the Angles was an ARC I received through booksirens.com. The cover caught my eye, and the historical period in which this story takes place (Great Depression just prior to the start of WWII) was very intriguing. I had high hopes, but unfortunately I felt like the writing and storytelling fell flat in spite of the fantastic premise.

I've included my Goodreads review below:

I've really struggled with the rating for this book, because there were certainly aspects and parts of it that I really enjoyed, but the good was diluted with quite a few disappointments. I finally landed on 2 stars, which I think of as "it was okay" (in accordance with the Goodreads rating system).

First, the pros:

The cover is fantastic. It was a major part of what drew me to the book originally.

The historical fiction aspect of this book was fascinating, and has me wanting to study more about the political landscape in America during the Great Depression.

The story was definitely interesting, although it felt pretty slow up until the end, at which point… it ended. So that was a bit disappointing. I feel like the groundwork of a great plot was there, but the execution was lacking.

I liked Deet: I appreciated the camaraderie he had with Dixon, and his strong work ethic.

I loved the ending for Dixon.

Now for the cons:

The overwhelming and unnecessary amount of references to sex and arousal. Why?? Most of it was completely unrelated to the plot of the story, so why include it? I can understand closed-door references to sex if it affects the plot (which 1-2 scenes in this book's case did), but most of it was completely unnecessary and truly just tainted the good story.

As I mentioned earlier, the story plodded along rather slowly most of the time— especially in the middle. I was interested to see where the story went, but felt like I had to push myself to pick up the book on quite a few occasions because it wasn't really holding my attention.

It wasn't written super clearly. I grew confused on multiple occasions as to who's side people were on (especially when called by nicknames, like "commies"), and what exactly they had against each other. I felt like I finally started figuring it out at the end of the book.

All in all, this book was okay. It definitely had the potential for a really great story, but for me it just fell flat.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

When I picked up this book, I didn't realize it was not written by Agatha Christie. When my husband asked "Who's Sophie Hannah?" I shrugged and said, "maybe a co-author?" 😅

Half-way through this, I stopped to Google these books and realized that Sophie Hannah is an author recently accepted as an Agatha Christie substitute, as it were. While there are some distinguishing differences in writing, I personally thought it was incredibly well done.

The story itself was intriguing, suspenseful, and had the customary Christie-style plot twist at the end.

Very interesting storyline. As usual, an enjoyable read (who doesn't like Poirot??).

This was a re-read. I originally read The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax in May, but I knew my children would love the Pollifax stories so this was a read-aloud. As expected, the fell in love with "Duchess" (iykyk) and couldn't get enough of the suspense and excitement of Mrs. Pollifax's adventures.

An interesting read. Not my usual, but I'm glad I stepped out of my comfort zone for this. In this book we follow a family, through the point-of-view of the eldest daughter, as they navigate the loss of their mom/wife, the condemnation of the local town's people for being farmers, and the worsening mental health of their father. It felt a bit long-winded at times, but the redemption-themes and church community rallying around at the end made this a very worthwhile read.

This middle-grade book is well worth the read! Following 2 siblings who fled London at the beginning of WWII— one a cripple, both unwanted. Similar to A Place to Hang the Moon, this dug a little deeper into broken family dynamics, grief, and found family. Heartbreaking and beautiful at the same time, with a little bit of adventure thrown in for fun. The War that Saved My Life is going on my children's reading list for this winter.

I found this book disappointing, not gonna lie. The only other Jane Austen I've read is Pride and Prejudice, which had way more pep and humor. I know this was a slightly different genre, but it just felt sooooo slow until the very end. I'm looking forward to reading more Austen in order to see which is more her style— Pride and Prejudice or Persuasion.

I don't know how to explain how much I love the Mrs. Pollifax books! They are simultaneously super unrealistic and highly entertaining. The characters are well written, the action is suspenseful, and the endings are always enjoyable. I will continue to read all of this series!

An excellent book about looking at hardship through the lens of Scripture. I love how Abbie clarifies that while Hard Is Not the Same Thing as Bad, it's also not automatically good, either. Different hard = different ways we, as Christians, should view and react to it. Definitely recommend!

This was a fun book, although it's a collection of short stories so I'd actually read quite a few of them before. I don't like the Harley Quinn stories, but there were only a couple in this book. The rest were well written, enjoyable, whodunits that were quick to read while not losing any of the classic Agatha Christie pizzaz.

An interesting read. The fact that it's based on a true story is fascinating, I'd never heard of it before. Obviously, there isn't a lot known about the woman who was left on an island for 18 years (since she didn't speak any known language and couldn't communicate her story), so I felt like this book was a bit lackluster because there wasn't a lot of data to go off of, and yet the author didn't seem interested in adding too much that wasn't true. Glad I read it, but it wasn't spectacular.