August 2025 Wrap Up

I don't really have anything interesting to say here that I haven't said in weekly updates, but I will do a quick overview of the 4 books I managed to finish in August.

The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman - The reason I didn't do a mid-month wrap up in August is because by mid-month I had not finished a single book. I finally finished this beast on the 17th. It was 592 pages of small print, on large pages, with slender margins, written in the most unintelligible dialect. It was a good story until the last page. Ugh.

Wild for Austen: A Rebellious, Subversive, and Untamed Jane by Devoney Looser - I liked what the author had to say here, but I do not think the repetition of the world "wild" was necessary to make the point. It just got annoying by about the halfway mark. I was listening to it on audio, so it may have been a different story if I was reading it in print. I almost want to look at a copy to see if the world wild was emphasized in print.

Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh - This was a re-read for me. It's mostly pictures, so I read it in one sitting. The main character depicts herself in the book as that figure in pink on the cover. The whole thing is like this. It's a memoir about growing up weird. She definitely has ADHD and maybe autism. I'm not here to diagnose, but she was definitely weird. It's funny, too. That helps.

The Pardon: Nixon, Ford and the Politics of Presidential Mercy by Jeffrey Toobin - I read this exclusively at work, so it took half of forever to finish it. It was mostly about Ford and Nixon and how that situation with the pardon heard round the world differed from pardons made previous to that, and pardons made since then. The last chapter basically ripped into President Cheeto for his bullshit pardons. I learned a lot.

And there you have it. I am hopefully improving my rate in September. I have already finished one book, and I'm only 4 books behind my Goodreads goal. Winning?