Hello!

While I’m on summer break from school, I’m taking advantage of my free time and  reading as much as I can. This also means that I’ve had more time to listen to audiobooks.

Before I go into the books I read this month, I would like to do a midyear update of my two reading challenges. 

The first challenge I have is my Goodreads challenge. As I have done for the past couple of years, I have set the amount of books I would like to read as 52. I’m currently 87% through my goal with 45 books under my belt.

This goal is heavily supplemented by audiobooks as I work my way through the Hercule Poirot series by Agatha Christie. 

The second challenge is the Pick Your Poison Reading Challenge. That list contains 27 books. When it comes to the books on that list, I have only read 3 books.

I’m hoping that the second half of the year goes better when it comes to reading the books off of that list. 

With that update out of the way, let’s get to the books I read in June!

I hope you find a new read from this list! 

Harley Quinn, Vol. 1: No Good Deed by Stephanie Phillips

Summary:

Harley Quinn returns to Gotham City after The Joker War and has decided to turn over a new leaf and make up for the sins of her past by becoming its newest protector.

Harley Quinn here, to let everyone know that I’m starring in a brand-new graphic novel collection with a brand-new status quo. I’m coming back to Gotham City to make up for the sins of my past, and help the city recover from The Joker War!

But there’s no welcoming committee waiting for me, your favorite Maid of Mischief! And between you and me, some real creeps are working to keep the city broken. We can’t let that happen, can we?

Review:

In my task to read every piece of Harley Quinn storyline, I stumbled across this one. Since I go in and out of the DC universe, I didn’t know much about the previous storyline involving The Joker War. However, despite this lack of knowledge, I still enjoyed reading about Harley trying to correct the mistakes of her past. 

The story kept me engaged, and I ended it wanting to see how the story continued.

My one negative was that I didn’t find the art style as appealing throughout most of the story, but it wasn’t a big distraction. 

Rating:

4/5

Trista, Vol. 1 by Tatsuya Endo

Summary:

Tista leads a dual life as the grim reaper of New York City and a university student studying to be a teacher. With extraordinary eyesight allowing her to make long-range shots with unrivaled accuracy, she has come to be feared by the criminal underground. Tista knows she’s doomed, but can her feelings for a young man she just met bring her back from the abyss? And what will she do if he finds out who she really is?

Review:

I had read the other manga series by this author, Spy X Family, and I really enjoy that one. So, when I heard about the English release of this one, I immediately bought it so I could read it.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t as good to me.

While I enjoy the overall premise of the story, the characters and the setting are not engaging. It takes place in New York City, but a very stereotypical one that you would come across in a 70s movie.

Some of the plot is also confusing. This may be fixed in the second volume, but I didn’t enjoy this as much as I wanted to.

Rating:

3/5

Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie

Summary:

Who wouldn’t be pleased to attend a small dinner party being held by Sir Charles Cartwright, once the leading star of the London stage? At his “Crow’s Nest” home in Loomouth, Cornwall.

Unfortunately, thirteen guests arrived at the actor’s house, most unlucky. One of them was a vicar. It was to be a particularly unlucky evening for the mild-mannered Reverend Stephen Babbington, who choked on his cocktail, went into convulsions and died. But when his martini glass was sent for chemical analysis, there was no trace of poison — just as Hercule Poirot, also in attendance, had predicted. Even more troubling for the great detective, there was absolutely no motive!

Review:

This was one of the few mysteries I was able to solve early on due to similarities with other stories Christie has written before. This was reflected in the character motivation, as well as the process taken for the crime. 

While entertaining, it was slightly predictable.

Rating:

3/5

You Sound Like a White Girl: The Case for Rejecting Assimilation by Julissa Acre

Summary:

Nationally bestselling author Julissa Arce beautifully interweaves her own experiences with cultural commentary to dispell the myth that assimilation leads to happiness and belonging for immigrants in America, and instead calls for a celebration of our uniqueness, our origins, our heritage, and the beauty of the differences that actually make us Americans.

Arce, who came to live in Texas from Mexico at age 11, shares the story of her assimilation to America, learning English, losing her culture, making money while undocumented and working on Wall Street, and the inevitable scars that came from pursuing an ever-moving goal post. She interweaves current political events and Latinx history into personal stories, covering topics including racism, cultural identity, money, friendships, and love. Arce’s goals are two-fold: by sharing her experiences she wants to encourage other people of color to recognize who they are is more than enough to be American, and she believes more visibility and representation of the Latinx experience will force people to recognize Hispanics as the Americans they are, rather than outsiders.

Review:

When I read the summary, I believed she would focus on people of color in general with specific examples from her heritage. However, as I began reading the first few chapters, I realized this was not the case.

While Acre’s book wasn’t what I was looking for when it came to how race is applied to my life, it did give me the opportunity to learn some more history about how minorities are treated in America.

Rating:

3/5

Death in the Clouds by Agatha Christie

Summary:

A woman is killed by a poisoned dart in the enclosed confines of a commercial passenger plane. Flying from Paris to London.

From seat No.9, Hercule Poirot was ideally placed to observe his fellow air passengers. Over to his right sat a pretty young woman, clearly infatuated with the man opposite; ahead, in seat No.13, sat a Countess with a poorly-concealed cocaine habit; across the gangway in seat No.8, a detective writer was being troubled by an aggressive wasp. What Poirot did not yet realize was that behind him, in seat No.2, sat the slumped, lifeless body of a woman.

How could this happen with the world’s No. 1 private detective on board?

Review:

This was an enjoyable mystery to read. It’s one of my favorite kind of Christie mysteries where the only people who could commit the crime are all in one room.

The clues were well laid out, and the characters captured my interest well enough to remember their names. This is a common problem when it comes to her larger cast of characters, as I just lose track.

Even though I was able to figure out who committed the crime, it wasn’t too predictable in how it was told. 

Rating:

4/5

Final Girls by Riley Sager

Summary:

Ten years ago, college student Quincy Carpenter went on vacation with five friends and came back alone, the only survivor of a horror movie–scale massacre. In an instant, she became a member of a club no one wants to belong to—a group of similar survivors known in the press as the Final Girls. Lisa, who lost nine sorority sisters to a college dropout’s knife; Sam, who went up against the Sack Man during her shift at the Nightlight Inn; and now Quincy, who ran bleeding through the woods to escape Pine Cottage and the man she refers to only as Him. The three girls are all attempting to put their nightmares behind them, and, with that, one another. Despite the media’s attempts, they never meet.

Now, Quincy is doing well—maybe even great, thanks to her Xanax prescription. She has a caring almost-fiancé, Jeff; a popular baking blog; a beautiful apartment; and a therapeutic presence in Coop, the police officer who saved her life all those years ago. Her memory won’t even allow her to recall the events of that night; the past is in the past.

That is, until Lisa, the first Final Girl, is found dead in her bathtub, wrists slit, and Sam, the second, appears on Quincy’s doorstep. Blowing through Quincy’s life like a whirlwind, Sam seems intent on making Quincy relive the past, with increasingly dire consequences, all of which makes Quincy question why Sam is really seeking her out. And when new details about Lisa’s death come to light, Quincy’s life becomes a race against time as she tries to unravel Sam’s truths from her lies, evade the police and hungry reporters, and, most crucially, remember what really happened at Pine Cottage, before what was started ten years ago is finished.

Review:

I liked the concept of the book. I’m a big fan of horror movies, so I’m very familiar with the idea of a final girl. However, we don’t really get much of that idea or premise in this story since we only really deal with one of the girls who fit this criteria. 

I also enjoyed the flashbacks to the events at Pine Cottage. That storyline is more up my alley when it comes to mystery or suspense elements. 

Unfortunately, I didn’t like the main character or most of the story outside of those flashbacks. I didn’t really enjoy her personality, and we focused on her in the present day too long, I became annoyed. I understand that she is experiencing PTSD and trauma, but some of the decisions she makes are plain dumb. 

Rating:

3/5

The A.B.C. Murders by Agatha Christie

Summary:

When Alice Asher is murdered in Andover, Hercule Poirot is already looking into the clues. Alphabetically speaking, it’s one letter down, twenty-five to go.

There’s a serial killer on the loose. His macabre calling card is to leave the ABC Railway Guide beside each victim’s body. But if A is for Alice Asher, bludgeoned to death in Andover, and B is for Betty Bernard, strangled with her belt on the beach at Bexhill, who will then be Victim C? More importantly, why is this happening?

Review:

I enjoyed the different storytelling format used to tell this mystery. I could do at times without Hastings and his constant doubt in Poirot, but what can be expected of him by now. This was one of her more classic mysteries that constantly had me guessing.

Rating:

4/5

Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie

Summary:

An archaeologist’s wife is murdered on the shores of the River Tigris in Iraq.

It was clear to nurse Amy Leatheran that something sinister was going on at the Hassanieh dig, something associated with the presence of ‘Lovely Louise’, the wife of the celebrated archaeologist Dr. Leidner. But she couldn’t pinpoint it.

In a few days’ time Hercule Poirot was due to drop in at the excavation site. With Louise suffering terrifying hallucinations, and tension within the group becoming almost unbearable, Poirot might just be too late…

Review:

While the mystery was fine for this story, and the main character who was narrating it was okay, the overall setting and how the mystery was relayed wasn’t the best.

This is one of the Poirot mysteries where Poirot is not directly involved or connected to the people. Instead, he was asked to come in by another person. Because of this, instead of us being able to see some of the clues that would help a reader solve the crime, it’s all just to us at the end in an exposition dump for both the victim and the murderer. 

Plus, it unfortunately showcases some of the racism that was a bit more common in that time period. 

Rating:

3/5