July Reads 2024
July Reads 2024: 4 Books I Read this Month
By: Brittany Shields
So I don’t know about you, but I’m one of those travelers who brings like 10 books on every vacation with the very real, yet miscalculated, intentions of reading at least most of them.
My husband and I took a trip to Switzerland this month and when I saw the flight was 9 hours I, of course, loaded my bag with books.
But I tell you what. When the girl in front of me put her seat all the way back for the first 7 hours and reading would require me sitting perfectly straight up with the book right in front of my face, my reading plans were shot.
The only way to survive that kind of plane ride was a movie marathon.
If I can’t be comfortable reading it really takes the fun out of it.
All that to say, this month I watched a lot of movies and only read 4 books. So sue me. No, actually sue the girl in front of me who thought having her seat all the way back while she leaned all the way forward for hours was a real fun thing to do.
Moving on, because I’m totally over my frustration, my four books this month were from four different genres and three of them were new releases! The non-new release is the first book in a popular series (Red Rising) that I was excited to start.
After finishing and being excited about it, I have since discovered that the last half of the series gets significantly more gory and unnecessarily violent. I’m sure that is a subjective opinion, however, it’s one that, based on my reading of the first book I would tend to probably heed. That being said, my plans with that series is to read the first three books and leave the others for someone else to experience.
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1. The Day He Never Came Home by Andrew DeYoung
Genre: Suspense/Thriller
“What was love, anyway, but the feeling of being tied up with someone, so deeply connected that it was impossible to root them out of your life without pulling out whole pieces of yourself? It didn’t have to be a good thing, a pleasant thing. Love could be terrible, too.”
I came across this book because it was recommended by an author I really enjoy: Nicole Baart. I was intrigued by the title and premise because it reminded me of The Last Thing He Told Me which I really liked. I gave it a shot.
It was a bit different than I was expecting but still an enjoyable read.
It’s about a husband who buys his wife a lake house, then doesn’t come home that night. Then the wife is visited by FBI agents the next day to arrest her husband for fraud. Her life becomes chaos and an unraveling all the lies she believed about her husband and trying to protect her family from the consequences of his choices.
Read my full review to see the things that disappointed me about the book and get the content advisory.
2. Beautiful Freedom: How the Bible Shapes Your View of Appearance, Food, and Fitness by Stacy Reaoch
Genre: Christian Living
“We’ll be equipped to really examine our motivations— why do we eat the way we do? Why do we exercise, or not exercise? Why are we inclined to go to great lengths to look a few years younger? Why do we have this tendency or that tendency? And crucially, where is God calling us into something better? In what ways is he inviting us into freedom?”
I don’t know about you, but I have found that appearances, food preferences and restrictions, and fitness habits seem to be a point of contention or at least of inner comparison and judgment for me and my circles.
Food and fitness habits have subtly gotten put into moral categories and all of a sudden we have expanded the commands of the Bible.
While this book doesn’t turn a gray area into black and white, it offers good insights on what the Bible does actually say—principles that we have the freedom to apply differently in our lives.
I think any woman would benefit from reading this book and would recommend that you read it with one or two trusted friends to wrestle with what God might be calling you to do.
It’s a book that will hopefully send everyone into a trajectory for more unity in our relationships and the church even if we make different choices about food and fitness.
Read my full review to get more details on what Stacy talks about in this book.
3. Red Rising (Red Rising #1) by Pierce Brown
Genre: Dystopian/Sci-Fi
[Fulfilled ‘Book with twins’ for Shelf Reflection’s 2024 Reading Challenge]
“I am no Gold. I am a Red… Forged in the bowels of this hard world. Sharpened by hate. Strengthened by love.”
“I am the spark that will set the worlds afire. I am the hammer that cracks the chains.”
I’m a little late to the Red Rising Party as this book came out in 2014, but I’m happy to be here and since all the books are out I’m also happy I don’t have to wait for the next one!
This is your classic dystopian fantasy/sci-fi series about classism and the rebellion against the ruling elite. It’s similar to Hunger Games, Maze Runner, and Lord of the Flies but a more intense, adult version. Yes, there are a bunch of youths fighting one another in an arena of sorts where the rules constantly change, the outcome appears rigged, and their humanity is on the brink of being lost forever. But they are in space and the writing is more graphic and ruthless.
I mean I was just 40 pages in when my heart was ripped out so that was fun. But it did immediately invest me in the success of the main character. The stakes felt very high throughout the whole book.
Read my full review to get more plot details, see my caveats, and get my ultimate recommendation.
4. Lenny Marks Gets Away with Murder by Kerryn Mayne
Genre: Fiction/Mystery
“She was a human-sized bad omen, as if she’d smashed every mirror, walked under every ladder and put new shoes on every table she’d ever seen. Lenny didn’t really put stock in superstitions and yet her track record spoke for itself.”
I’m guessing the title of this book will be a bit misleading for most. Lenny Marks Gets Away with Murder is basically the Aussie version of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. Not in a way where this book isn’t worth reading— because it is— it will just feel a little familiar.
It’s not a thriller. It’s a partly light-hearted and humorous, partly tragic and dark family drama with a neurodivergent main character who is haunted by the malicious phrase “You did this.” without the full memories to explain it.
This book is the story of how Lenny confronts her memories and how she comes out of her shell: The One Where Lenny Marks Gets a Life.
But yet, we must not forget the title. Because although this book is not a thriller, the title isn’t a lie. How does someone as nice as Lenny Marks find herself in such a provocative title?
Read my full review to get some quotes, some random thoughts, learn the new Aussie words I discovered, and get my ultimate recommendation.
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