June 2024 Wrap Up

Man, that flew by! I did a wrap up at the halfway point, so here is the rest of the wrap up. I currently have Covid, so if there are more typos than usual, let's just blame that.

Funny Story by Emily Henry - I was nervous about this one because I really didn't care for her last one. Luckily, I really enjoyed this one. The main character, Daphne, is a children's librarian. She moved away from everyone she loved to follow her boyfriend to a small town in Michigan. The day after his bachelor party, he tells her he's in love with his best friend and he's calling off the wedding. She has nowhere to go except to move in with the newly dumped boyfriend of the girl who stole her fiance. It's a romance, so you can parse out the rest. I loved the scenes that take place in the library and she says some beautiful things about libraries. I might be biased.

How to Read Now by Elaine Castillo - This one started out so strong. The first essay was fascinating. She made some statements that I had never thought about. I annotated it and really drank it in. The second essay was less fantastic, but still good. The third essay was 50 pages on why she hates Joan Didion. I am not familiar with Joan Didion, so I had no frame of reference for what she was saying. I don't even remember what the next 3 essays were about. I feel like one was about movies I've never seen. I was disappointed.

Simon Sort of Says by Erin Bow - I finally buckled down last Saturday and wrapped this up. The beginning of it gave me anxiety because it kept hinting at something horrible that happened 2 years before that ruined Simon's life by making him go viral in a terrible way. It doesn't say what that is for about half the book. I was afraid he had done something really stupid that made it to the internet. Nope. He was the lone survivor of a school shooting in the 5th grade. His entire class was gunned down, but not him. He was on the bottom of a pile of kids. He and his family have moved to a little town in Nebraska that doesn't allow any wi-fi, cell phones, internet, microwaves, etc. to not interfere with the SETI lab and its quest for alien contact. Perfect. No one knows who he is. The characters in this are fantastic. Simon's dad is a Catholic Deacon and his mom is a funeral director. The funeral home/house they took over came with a psychotic peacock. His new best friend is autistic and lives on a goat farm. Her next door neighbor raises emus and is fanatical about radioactivity. It has a lot to say, but it was also pretty funny.

Ok. That makes a total of 8 books in June. Not too shabby. Bring on July!