Linking up today with Steph and Jana to talk about some of the books I’ve read lately. I hit my mid-year Goodreads goal of 100 books on July 2, so I am super excited about that! Half of them have been fluffier easy reads, but I have enjoyed reading so many books this year and having people to chat about them with. I think I might need to dial it back a bit this summer but I don’t mind!!

I am not sharing all the books I read here anymore, but I do post about them on Goodreads 🙂 I read a random assortment of books this month and none of them are over the top recommendations, but you might find something that interests you here 🙂

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I started this once and ended up putting it down because I wasn’t in a YA mood. The second time I picked it up, I loved it. Can’t wait for the movie and now I need to get to the others in the series. It is VERY YA but very sweet and the family dynamics are adorable.

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was on the fence about whether I liked this book the entire time I was listening to it. It was SO sad and disheartening in a lot of ways. It was hard to read. It was well written and intense, but it was SO hard to read at times. I can see in some ways how it would be worth the read, and maybe I read it at the wrong time or something but it felt extremely heavy to me. It did make me think a bit about parenting though…

Kiss of the Spindle by Nancy Campbell Allen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Absolutely loved this…I think I possibly loved it more than Beauty and the Clockwork Beast which I also really enjoyed. The characters in this Sleeping Beauty steampunk retelling were SO likable and fun and highly readable. Sleeping Beauty is not my favourite fairytale and I still absolutely adored this retelling. I highly recommend if you like proper romance or steampunk but it is a bit of an acquired taste, maybe. 🙂 Thank you to Edelweiss & Shadow Mountain Publishing for the advanced readers copy of this lovely book. 

The Girl in Times Square by Paullina Simons
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was on my TBR for AGES because Kristen had rated it 5 stars almost 10 years ago. haha. I was super intrigued by her rating and figured this book would be really good. It was really good and it certainly held my interest throughout. My only complaint was that it was INSANELY long and it felt like I just wanted to figure out what was going on. It didn’t feel long while I was reading it, but I just wanted to get to the end. So I guess it was a bit of a practice in delayed gratification? haha. I guess I want my thrillery-what’s-going-on-here books to be more around 300 pages, but that’s my problem. 🙂 Really enjoyed a few of the characters in this book, despised others, but overall I am really glad I finally had the chance to read it.

Sting by Sandra Brown
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was my first Sandra Brown book (shocking, I know!) but she is very familiar to me because my mom has probably read almost all of her books. I like this genre in the summertime – romantic suspense, I guess? This book was good, but not my favourite. I will definitely pick up a few of her others though. I didn’t see a few of the twists coming.

Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies about Who You Are So You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be by Rachel Hollis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really liked the format of this book and it is definitely one of the more motivating I’ve read in this genre. Her story is definitely inspiring and I like that she wrote this book from a place of vulnerability. I don’t always have the attention span for these self-help motivational books despite loving the concept behind them, but this one really held my interest (and it was relatively short and to the point, which was a huge bonus).

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is getting a ton of hype this summer for good reason! I really loved this one – super fun characters, great pace, great chemistry – loved Stella and her personality and her interesting job. Michael was great too as the male lead – very different from others I’ve read lately, so that was quite refreshing. I listened to this and I think I would have enjoyed it a bit more in print but I *couldn’t* wait that long to get it from the library!! I will absolutely be buying this sometime.

A few romances I enjoyed this month:

Grin & Beard it and Beard Science by Penny Reid for the Reid-Alongs in anticipation of the next Winston Brothers book coming out in July!
Blush for Me & The Beauty of Us by Kristen Proby
One & Only and It Takes Two by Jenny Holiday (thank you, Netgalley! FUN Canadian author alert!!!)

I need to expand my horizons a bit and I also want to get back into audiobooks – I let that slide a bit this month but I am antsy for a good one!!! Any recommendations? 😉

CURRENTLY READING: All Your Perfects (my first Colleen Hoover book), and I need to start something else today… probably One of us is Lying because it is due back to the library soon!