Riot Baby – Tochi Onyebuchi ★★★★

I got an ARC of Riot Baby at Bookcon this year and WOW. I’m so glad that I did. This book follows a black family living in Harlem. Ella has supernatural abilities that aren’t fully explained, but very much connect her to her brother Kev who is born during the 1992 LA riots. ⁣Ella and Kev have to navigate Ella’s powers, as well as a society built on structural racism, police brutality and violence. This book is so real that when Sci-Fi elements are introduced and the dystopian version of our world starts to come through, it feels as if it’s the natural progression of our society. ⁣
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I really love this book, Tochi’s voice is so raw and important in Science Fiction. I only wished that it was longer! Hopefully it will become a series. This book comes out January 2020.

The Night Circus – Erin Morgenstern ★★★★★

I have heard so many good things about The Night Circus but I never expected to love it as much as I did. It was kind of hard to get into at first and it took me about a week to read the first 100 or so pages, but after that initial slump I couldn’t put it down! I really enjoy a good slow burn so I liked how Morgenstern really took her time with the plot and the character development. The writing is so magical and poetic, which totally immersed me into the magical world that the circus created. Not to mention that the romance in this book reallllllly got me.

Tell Me Everything – Cambria Brockman ★★★

This was another ARC that I got while at Bookcon. Tell Me Everything is a thriller that follows a group of college friends who met their Freshman year. Now it’s Senior year and the secrets and lies that have followed them through the years are starting to get out and it all leads up to a ~murder~

This is a pretty decent psychological thriller. It’s not amazing, but it’s not terrible either. I was kind of let down by the ending and at times it moved slow, but overall it was a good read. The characters were interesting and it was easy for me to get invested in the group of friends. This book comes out July 16th. 2019

The Wives – Tarryn Fisher ★★★

Yet again, another ARC that I got at Bookcon! The Wives is a domestic thriller about a woman whose husband has two other wives. She has never met the other two women, but an opportunity arises for her to secretly get to know one of the wives and she takes advantage of it. This was a little slow paced and underwhelming, but maybe that’s because I don’t read many domestic thrillers. The end at a pretty big twist that added an interesting element to the story but I only wish it were explored a little more.

This book comes out December 2019.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo – Taylor Jenkins Reid ★★★★★

This !! Book !! I had heard so many great things about this book and Taylor Jenkins Reid but I was so late at jumping on the bandwagon! I’m so glad that I spontaneously decided to read this book in June (I needed a break from thrillers) because it’s one of my favorite books of the year so far. I can’t wait to start Daisy Jones and the Six!

Evelyn Hugo is a Hollywood movie star who, at the age of 79, has finally agreed to tell her life story in the form of a biography written by Monique Grant and Monique Grant only. Evelyn has never agreed to talk about her life or her 7 husbands before, so this book would be a huge deal for Monique. But why would superstar Evelyn Hugo want an unknown staff writer to have complete control over her highly coveted biography?

FantasticLand – Mike Brockoven ★★★.5

I joined a horror book group on Instagram called Bookstaghouls because I want to read more horror! FantasticLand ended up being the first book we decided to read and it was a solid choice. A hurricane hits a Florida amusement park called Fantastic Land and a group of about 300 people, mainly teenagers who were working at the park, are asked to stay in the park and await rescue. However it’s months before they’re rescued and during that time the kids form rival groups and lets just say that !murder! ensues.

This book is very Lord of the Flies and although it didn’t really freak me out too much, there were a couple parts that definitely made me feel icky.

The Woman in Cabin 10 – Ruth Ware ★★★★

I ended the month on a good note with The Woman in Cabin 10. Yet again, another psychological thriller this month. Lo, a travel journalist, gets the opportunity to stay aboard a new fancy cruise ship. When she thinks she hears a murder, things start to go downhill for Lo very quickly.

I will say that I’m not really a fan of the unreliable/ alcoholic/ depressed/ woman protagonist trope BUT this book did a good job of giving Lo a lot of agency and the reader was very inclined to believe Lo throughout the book. The first 100 ish pages were pretty slow and I wish the book just opened with Lo on the boat, but it started to pick up speed pretty quickly after that.