August Book Review

August; you were but a blink of an eye, here & gone so incredibly fast! I always knew that August was going to fly by & it absolutely did! While it was flying, I kept up my reading streak! Let's get to the books I read for the month of August!

The It Girl by Ruth Ware: Vivacious, bright, occasionally vicious & the ultimate It girl, she quickly pulled Hannah into her dazzling orbit. Together, the developed a group of devoted & inseparable friends - Will, Hugh, Ryan & Emily - during their first term. By the end of the second, April was dead. 

Now, a decade later, Hannah & Will are expecting their first child, & the man convicted of killing April, former Oxford porter John Neville, has died in prison. Relieved to have finally put the past behind her, Hannah's world is rocked when a young journalist comes knocking & presents new evidence that Neville may have been innocent. As Hannah reconnects with old friends & delves deeper into the mystery of April's death, she realizes that the friends she thought she knew all have something to hide... including a murder. 

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐of five: This was a really intriguing book, filled with twists & turns... some of which I predicted & some that I didn't! I loved that it was set in Oxford because I've been to some of the locations mentioned, so that was fun! Ruth Ware continues to write such great mystery & thriller stories!

It End with Us by Colleen Hoover: Lily hasn't always had it easy, but that's never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She's come a long way from the small town in Maine where she grew up - she graduated from college, moved to Boston, & started her own business. So when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily's life suddenly seems almost too good to be true. 

Ryle is assertive, stubborn, maybe even a little arrogant. He's also sensitive, brilliant & has a total soft spot for Lily. And the way he looks in scrubs certainly doesn't hurt. Lily can't get him out of her head. But Ryle's complete aversion to relationships is disturbing. Even as Lily finds herself becoming the exception to his "no dating" rule, she can't help but wonder what made him that way in the first place. 

As questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan - her first love & a link to the past she left behind. He was her kindred spirit, her protector. When Atlas suddenly reappears, everything Lily has built with Ryle is threatened. 

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐of five: This book was NOT what I was expecting! I had seen the movie previews & the hype surrounding the book, so I grabbed a copy thinking I was in for a delightful rom-com style read. The book is very much about domestic violence with a little romance thrown in... but I was completely surprised that is was much heavier than I had anticipated! Having said that - I would like to read the follow up to it, It Begins with Us.

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore: Early morning, August 1975; a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn't just any thirteen-year-old: she's the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp & employs most of region's residents. And this isn't the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara's older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found. 

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family & the blue-collar community working in it's shadow, Moore's multi-threaded story invites readers into & rich & gripping dynasty of secrets & second chances. It is Liz Moore's most ambitious & wide-reaching novel yet. 

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐of five: Another book that wasn't quite what I thought it would be. The story was compelling & kept me intrigued, but I guess I thought there might be a bit more to it than rich people getting away with things. *shrugs* It was a good read - just not quite the read I thought I was getting.

Husbands & Lovers by Beatriz Williams: New England, 2022. Three years ago, single mother Mallory Dunne received the telephone call every parents dreads - her ten year old son, Sam, had been airlifted from summer camp with acute poisoning from a toxic death cap mushroom, leaving him fighting for his life. Now, searching for a donor kidney that will give her son a chance for a normal life, Mallory's forced to confront two harrowing secrets from her past: her mother's adoption from an infamous Irish orphanage in 1952, and her own all-consuming summer romance fourteen years earlier with her childhood best friend, Monk Adams - one of the world's most beloved singer-songwriters - a fairy tale cut short by a devastating betrayal. 

Cairo, 1951. After suffering tragedy beyond comprehension in the war, Hungarian refugee Hannah Ainsworth has forge a respectable new life for herself - marriage to a wealth British diplomat with a coveted posting in glamorous Cairo. But a fateful encounter with the enigmatic manager of a hotel bristling with spies leads to a passionate affair that will reawaken Hannah's longing for everything she once lost. As revolution simmers in the Egyptian streets, a pregnant Hannah finds herself snared in a game of intrigue between two men... and an act of sacrifice that will echo down the generations. 

Timeless and bittersweet, Husband & Lovers takes readers on an unforgettable journey of heartbreak and redemption, from the revolutionary fires of midcentury Egypt to the moneyed beaches of contemporary New England. 

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5 out of five: This book was far more delightful than I expected; I mean, the synopsis was obviously enough to interest me but this book was a bit different than I was expecting in a great way! I loved the family ancestry and the history intertwined in the story; I thought it was all really great. The characters were (mostly) loveable and the storyline was fantastic! Definitely my favorite read this month! 

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And that's August - done! I cannot believe there are just four more months left in 2024! I am almost to my goal, so I think it's safe to say I'll surpass it this year!