Dear Readers, July was a great month personally. I started a new job with more hours, but I had to sacrifice reading. I did not set a goal for the month since I knew my workload would increase. I read only 3 books this month, which is my lowest since starting this blog 6 years ago. I did hit my 6th blog anniversary this month. Thank you to everyone who has read this blog and shared books and conversations throughout the years it means so much to me.  I read one 5-star book, one 4-star book, and one 3-star book.

Five-Star Reviews:

The Black Book by David Ellis and James Patterson is a great thriller in Chicago. The Black Book is book 1 in the Billy Harney series. The thriller is about a brothel’s missing black book that catered to Chicago’s elite like the mayor. The book is filled with twists and double/triple crosses. The list of suspects is long with plenty of them having motive and opportunity. This was a reread for me and I couldn’t remember who the guilty party was, because there are so many suspects to choose from. We get two timelines in this book the present day and the weeks before. This way of storytelling works well and made me invested in the story right from the start. I had to know how things led up to crazy murder. The book is told from two different perspectives Billy and his sister Patty, who are both detectives. The pace for this book is rapid fast and easy to consume. The book is a little long for a James Patterson book at 418 pages but it is a fast read.

Four-Star Reviews:

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is a futuristic gladiator-style competition with prisoners who murder for freedom. While the book is satire it takes a harsh look at the prison system of today and the arrest percentages of minorities. When this book is focused on the fighters and the struggles they are going through the book is great. When the book expands to show the fandom and the spectacle of the fights it is just okay. I feel like the story spends way too much time on the spectacle other than spending time with the fighters. The story is what if the Gladiators games happened today using the prison system as the facilitators? The reflection of today’s prison system on the one portrayed in the book is in your face but very persuasive. The story is critical of the prison system but also acknowledges that we need it just with way more counseling to prepare them better for release. The irony of the story is some of the fighters find their humanity by killing other prisoners.

Three-Star Reviews:

Goosebumps – How I Learned to Fly by R.L. Stine is Goosebumps book 52 in the original series order. How I Learned to Fly is an interesting book as it takes if a person found out to fly and it happened what would the world do? Would they get fame? Would scientists want to poke and prod to get to this mystery? In this book all things happen this book is more a cautionary tale of overnight fame. The fear in the book comes out of the notoriety of fame. In this book, I was surprised a couple of times with the direction the story went. The ending was a better one for most of the Goosebumps series with a decent twist This book is the first book where two rivals fight for the attention of the girl they like. There are a couple of twists in the story, but no horror. The horror in this book is more of the mind, the fear of scientists doing experiments on you, the fear of being lost, the fear of losing your dog, and the fear of losing your identity.