What I Read in June 2022

Welp, it’s officially July (or so I wrote at the end of June though it has taken me a three-day holiday weekend to actually write and publish this post)! Here are what I read in June:

WIN ME SOMETHING by Kyle Lucia Wu – 3.75 stars

Willa is half Chinese but spent more of her childhood growing up with her white mother. Because both her dad and mom remarried and had children of their own, she feels like she doesn’t belong to either family and anywhere really. She lands a live-in nanny position for the Adriens family and their daughter Bijou. While living with them, she continues to feel out of place and lonely. I enjoyed reading Win Me Something. While my experiences have not been the same, I could understand and emphasize with Willa. Only thing I would say is that there isn’t a clean resolution or huge change in Willa’s character throughout the book though I think that makes sense for where Willa is at in her life.

OPEN BOOK by Jessica Simpson – 4 stars

I will say I didn’t really know about or care for Jessica Simpson prior to listening to her book Open Book. I had heard good things about it for some time, and I must concur! I really liked her narration throughout the book; it’s very honest and emotional. Sometimes you hear her choke up (especially parts about her cousin Sarah) while reading, and hearing her emotions in her voice added to understanding the book a little bit better. She mentions how she has kept journals for years and relied heavily on those journal entries in writing this book, which I think is why later chapters didn’t feel rushed or glimpsed over like I find some celebrity memoirs to be. After reading this book, I don’t think Jessica Simpson is a perfect person but someone who tries to be kind and honest. I’m happy I read it and would recommend it, especially if you’re an audiobook/memoir person!

THESE GHOSTS ARE FAMILY by Maisy Card – 4.25 stars

I would say These Ghosts Are Family was quite different than what I was expecting it to be based on the blurb on the dust jacket. Because of that reason, it took me a little bit to get into it (tbh come back to it after abandoning it for days). It’s more about just Stanford Solomon’s secret and his daughters meeting together for the first time. It’s a story about a much bigger family across multiple continents spanning multiple generations. It kind of reminded me of Girl, Woman, Other (read my review here) in the sense that you learn about a little bit about each member of the family as the book progresses, some of whom whose connection is not very unclear until you get to that part. The last quarter of the book also made me think of Transcendent Kingdom (read my review here).

WAYWARD CHILDREN SERIES by Seanan McGuire – 3.75/4 stars

COME TUMBLING DOWN – This is third book centering around Jack and Jill and perhaps the most stressful one out of the three. Jack and Jill are in each other’s bodies (per Jill’s plan and against Jack’s will). Jack returns to the school looking for aid to return to her own body.

ACROSS THE GREEN GRASS – A new character aka a standalone book in the series if you want to try reading one! Regan, who has been both a victim and a perpetuator of bullying, goes through a door into Hooflands, or a world of hoofed beings. Humans that come into Hooflands are destined to be a hero, whatever that may look like, and must report to the Queen, which Regan resists for a long time. This one has a little bit of Wizard of Oz vibes!

WHERE THE DROWNED GIRLS GO – Cora decides it’s time for her to move on from waiting for a door to open and requests to be transferred to a different school–The Whitethorn Institute. The Whitethorn takes quite a different approach from Eleanor’s Home for the Wayward Children and is not quite what Cora expected it to be. Really liked this one! There is an eventual escape but it’s hard to see exactly how it would play out.

P.S. I finished reading Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel over the weekend. Now I’m reading The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers and listening to The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris!

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