Dear readers, June was an interesting month for reading, at first i got really sick then when I got well my job at Amazon started overtime in prep for prime week. I only read 4 out of the six books I wanted to read. I was able to read quality over quantity. I read 2 five star, 1 four star, and 1 two star books. Next month will be filled with overtime and will not make a TBR for the month of July.

Five Star Books

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles is a historical fiction about a former aristocrat under house arrest or hotel arrest at the Metropol Russia’s grand hotel across from the Kremlin. The novel takes place in Moscow from just after the Russian Revolution 1922 – 1960s. The book despite its one location captures a lifetime events. The main character may be trapped but his spirit is not. The main character Count Alexander Rostov can charm anyone with his manners and has such a strength of will that is infectious. It makes you look at your own life and say what am I complaining about Rostov had nothing and managed to live a life to be happy about. The pace of the book is steady some chapters are slower and faster than others but for a big book, the story flows well. The book does dip into Russian politics which I know nothing about other than they are communist and I know a little bit about Stalin’s reign, but I never felt lost the book does a good job of summing up the Russian Revolution and how Communism came to rule. The book is about a political prisoner the politics remain throughout the novel, but never feels like a history lesson. This book is full of side characters that I grew to love, Nina and Sofia you just want to protect and you understand why the Count will do everything he can to protect them. The ending was great and made me cry happy tears.

Red Rising by Pierce Brown is an epic science fiction/fantasy. Red Rising is part of The Hunger Games meets Ender’s Game all based in a planetary society heavily influenced by ancient Rome. Red Rising is the first book in the Red Rising Saga which consists of an original trilogy and a second trilogy. The Red Rising Saga is comprised of 6 books so far. The book is about high and low society defined by the color of your skin, genetics, and a family house. The book is deep in philosophy and sociology. The book discusses what a society is, how it is run, and more importantly how it could be run. The world-building is very impressive we get a full new society that has a color-based hierarchy and a society that expands planets that have their history. Red Rising feels like 3 books in one that is part spy, part epic fantasy, and science fiction. This is one of the best debut novels that I have read, I can’t believe it was done by a first-time writer in terms of dialogue, description, and characters. This book is full of twists and turns, some you see coming, and some that are shocking betrayals. The novel is brutal at times showing society’s worst impulses such as rape, murder, depravity, and peeing on a defeated foe, the murder gets a little graphic but everything else is not graphic. The pace of the novel is very rapid, there are some slow moments but they are always interesting, and balanced by intense action. This book is bleak which will turn off some readers, sometimes it is a little too close to home in terms of being ruled by not the greatest people but the ones who have the most money and power. 

Four Star Book

System Collapse by Martha Wells is book 7 in The Murderbot Diaries series. I felt like this book was a return to form after really not liking book 6 Fugitive Telemetry. Murderbot is back and reunited with ART (my favorite series character). This book follows book 5 Network Effect (my favorite book) and restores the timeline. The character of Murderbot is so interesting and this book plays into the psychology of Murderbot becoming more human as he has to deal with human traits like anxiety and nightmares. The nightmare scene was great and reflects the trauma of the character that was once a killing machine that now protects humans. The plot for this story is nothing new as Murderbot once again saves dumb humans that are in over their heads, but this book like the others is a character study for Murderbot and the character is still fascinating. What’s new in this book is Murderbot is figuring out how to start liberating other Sec-units like himself. Murderbot is starting to care more for his humans as he watches the humans more than his media. The ending was intense and I doubted if everyone was going to make it out alive. The opening scene was great and one of my favorite of the series.

Two Star Book

End of Story by A.J. Finn is a mystery about a mystery author who saves all its suspense for the end. This is an interesting novel where I was hooked by the premise right away, then the book takes 200 pages to get interesting and for something to happen. I liked A. J. Finn’s debut of The Woman in the Window but only saw glimpses of the twisty excellent writing at the end of End of Story. I read the last 200 pages in 4 hours and it took me 12 days to read the first 200 pages. I wanted this novel to hook me the way The Woman in the Window did but I was left very unfulfilled. The book has a focus problem the most intriguing storyline is a reader interviewing a reclusive mystery writer who almost stopped writing after his wife and 12-year-old child went missing and thought that the author murdered them. The problem is that the reader is a horrible interviewer and doesn’t really ask questions when she should. The interviewer and the mystery writer’s oldest daughter Madeline are the perspectives that the story is told from. Madeline is an unreliable narrator and might be crazy or schizophrenic her chapters are hard to read because they are all over the place sometimes. The climax was one of the book’s only bright spots but it was written very unbelievably with 3 reveals in a roll with a detective present that is trying to stop more murders from happening while a character has a weapon in hand.