September Book Log

Non-fiction! Dystopian! Romance! We have everything!

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Heartbreaking, timely, amazingly written. If you can, listen to the audiobook, you won’t regret it. There are some sung lines in the book, and it just makes it all the more powerful.

Blood, Sweat, and Chrome by Kyle Buchanan

I highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend this book for any filmmaker, film fan, Mad Max fan, really anyone should read this then watch Mad Max: Fury Road to truly appreciate this insane masterpiece. It also made me want to watch the other Mad Max movies (I watched the first one many years ago and wasn’t the biggest fan, but now my opinion has changed). 

Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel

The girlhood instinct to fight. End of story. (I loved this so much)

The Skin and Its Girl by Sarah Cypher

Queer Palestinian literature!!! A very beautifully written book, and so heart wrenching. No review I can write can ever give it justice, so just read it. 

Mortal Follies by Alexis Hall

The sole DNF of this month, I was really looking forward to more regency sapphics (a la The Perks of Loving a Wallflower), but I found the main love interest to be very unlikable and commanding, and not in a sexy way. Honestly I found the main character’s best friend more interesting. I also wasn’t the biggest fan of the second-person point of view, especially during the sex scene. It was very weird. 

Just As You Are by Camille Kellogg

I think this is my second Jane Austen retelling this year? At any rate, a super relatable story, I saw a lot of myself in the main character’s struggles with gender expression. 

The Breakup Lists by Adib Khorram 

As much as I loved the theater kid references and disability representation, miscommunication (or rather, withholding information) is my least favorite trope. Also, it felt like the main love interest was a little one-note, which I hate to say because that was one of the things he disliked, was how other people saw him and how he wanted to be more of a pretty face. Also, and I am so sorry for this, but the main character going off book!! On stage!!! As a former stage manager that made me tear my hair out.

The Gifts That Bind Us and Every Gift a Curse by Caroline O’Donoghue

Counting these as two books but reviewing them as a whole. I read the first of O’Donoghue’s witchy YA trilogy last year, but haven’t been able to finish it until this year. I was really engaged throughout these books, and really related to the main character and her relationships with her friends. I highly recommend it, because the characters are so relatable and so well-rounded.