September Wrap-Up

September stats:

Books read: 9
Number of re-reads: 1

Ratings of the books I read:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4
⭐️⭐️⭐️ 0
No rating: 0

Rejoice, all! I had a good reading month, with a surprising number of great reads.

Five-star reads

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When They Call You a Terrorist by Patrisse Khan-Cullors & Asha Bandele | Just. Really good.

Heavy by Kiese Laymon | “I learned you haven’t read anything if you’ve only read something once or twice.” This book is amazing. Every line highlightable, every sentence weighted with meaning infused from the one before it. I can’t even explain how good it is. One to re-read again and again, for sure.

The Bone People by Keri Hulme | This is not an easy book to read, because it doesn’t follow many rules of language, but it FEELS like a story. I don’t know how else to put it. Read for Read Harder (ownvoices Oceania)

Lucky Broken Girl by Ruth Behar | I don’t read much (or any) Middle Grade, but I really enjoyed this story about a young Jewish Cuban immigrant who breaks her leg in the summer of 1966. Confined to her room for many months in a body cast, she goes through a ton of emotional growth and learns to appreciate her life. The diversity in the story is A+. It was written for a young audience but gently touched on a lot of grown-up themes, including racial equality and immigrant rights.

Four Stars

Permanent Record by Mary H.K. Choi | I was super excited about Choi’s sophomore novel, about a guy named Pablo who meets the famous actress Leanna Smart — and there’s instant chemistry. This was less about their romance and more about Pablo’s growth as a human. Still good, but not exactly what I was expecting.

Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie | A retelling of Antigone (which I wasn’t super familiar with before), this story follows a Muslim family in the UK, the brother of which is wrapped up in ISIS. It was beautifully written and not very long, but packed a punch.

Y is for Yesterday by Sue Grafton | I was feeling generous since this is the very last of the alphabet mystery series and I grew up on them. It’s probably more of a 3.5-er, but I love Kinsey Millhone so much that I’m willing to let it go.

Miracle Creek by Angie Kim | A courtroom drama about an experimental medical experiment gone awry, killing two people, and the aftermath. The story picks through all of the witnesses’ stories and we slowly uncover the truth. It took me about two weeks to recover from this one. I didn’t love the end… hence 4 stars.

Rereads

I reread Geekerella by Ashley Poston and it was still great!

Other Bookish Things…

I announced it on Twitter, but…. I have a literary agent! Yes, I wrote a book, now have an agent. I will probably update on the particulars of that in a separate post one of these days. But I’m over-the-moon excited and can’t wait to share more soon!

How was your month?