Maybe it's a little late for this post since September is halfway over, but after seeing a bunch of book tubers doing videos about their favorite summer books, I felt inspired to write a post about mine. I wasn't blogging over the summer, so I definitely have a lot of books I can write about for this one! For now, I'm going to stick to talking about my top 4 favorite books that I read from June-August.
1. I Believe in a Thing Called Love - Maureen Goo
To be honest, I was slightly worried I wouldn't like this one since I didn't really like Goo's first book, Since You Asked, when it came out a couple years ago. However, reading this book, I felt like Goo had turned into a completely different (and amazing!) writer. The writing was fun and snappy and I loved Desi's delightful voice throughout the story. Sometimes high concept books don't really work for me because the concept is way better than the actual writing and story, but in this case, every part of this book lived up to my high expectations because of the fun, unique concept. I loved all the characters in this book, totally shipped the romance, and had fun watching Desi's romantic capers.
2. Once and For All - Sarah Dessen
I haven't read a Sarah Dessen book in years, but had extremely high expectations for this one because I remembered how much I liked her in my early tween years. This book did not disappoint. I loved reading about the wedding planning business, and it added a cool and unique dimension to the story. It also utilized my two favorite romantic tropes, enemies to lovers and slow burn. Ambrose was definitely a swoonworthy love interest, and I absolutely adored him throughout the entire story. My one qualm about the book was the Ethan insta-love, which I just didn't buy at all. Still, even that didn't stop Once and For All from being one of my favorite books of the summer and making me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside.
3. Salt - Nayyirah Waheed
When my boyfriend and I first started dating, we read Rupi Kaur's Milk and Honey together, and since then I've been trying to find similar poetry because I enjoyed it so much. I've never read poetry for fun or outside of a poetry writing class, but I realized I actually like reading it for myself. I'm glad I discovered Nayyirah Waheed and Salt, because I found it utterly amazing and totally inspiring. She writes the kind of poetry I've always tried to write and wanted to write, so I found reading her very affirming and inspirational. I would recommend this one over her other collection, Nejma, though, because I didn't really "get" a lot of her poems in that one, especially the super-short one-liners, and found a lot of the long poems very repetitive (one of them literally repeats the same verse about three or four times). Salt, however, is a must-read for anyone interested in trying to get into poetry or even for those who already love the genre. Love, love, loved this collection. 11/10.
4. As I Descended - Robin Talley
I've already written a review of this one, but it's worth mentioning again because it was just that good. Reading it made me really embarrassed that I haven't read a Robin Talley book before even though I'm queer and love queer YA, because it was just so. Good. This one is pretty different from her other books since it's more on the horror side of things and her other books are either historical or contemporary, but reading it definitely made me want to read more of her books. It was perfectly creepy and atmospheric with addictive writing and a great, vivid setting. If you also haven't had a Robin Talley experience yet, I recommend starting with this intoxicating Macbeth retelling.
What were your favorite books of the summer?
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