July Reading
A few reviews and recs 📚
Happy Sunday!
If you’re following My Side Plot on Fable, you know our July book is Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk.
If you haven’t started yet, don’t worry! I’ll post my full review on July 21st, so there’s still time to catch up.
Until then, here are some books I’ve recently shelved…
The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
This was an audiobook re-read of one of my favourite classics. It’s short. It’s funny. It’s shockingly relatable. A man spontaneously turns into a bug and worries about how it will affect his job? If that ain’t me… 4/5 🪲
Swiped, L.M. Chilton
If you like campy horror movies and Dolly Alderton, this is the thriller for you! It wasn’t amazing, but it kept me reading and was a fun take on online dating. I was also extremely surprised to learn that L.M. Chilton is a man (although male authors never deliver the same calibre of sex scene…) 3/5 🔪
A Worthy Opponent, Katee Robert
Katee Robert, on the other hand, only writes sex scenes. She has built a literary empire on sex scenes. She has dreamed up fantasy sex multiverses that are truly boggling to comprehend. That is her superpower, and I respect her for it.
I cannot, however, respect myself for finishing this book. Please don’t ask me what it was about. Please don’t talk to me about it. Please understand that #BookTok will take you to weird places...
ANYWAY. This message is for Katee and Katee alone: Where the hell was the hook? Or a robot hand with different attachments? You can’t tell me that was where you drew the line?! What are we even doing here!?!? 1/5 🪝
Not books but a few other reads and watches for your weekend:
🫦Sex Scenes Are So Back — and Better, POPSUGAR
Intimacy coordinators are making sex scenes cool again, and I am here for it! “It's almost as if we've been desiring sex all along but just now discovered what we want it to look like.”
🎶 No one understands a woman in her 20s like Billy Joel, The Guardian
Billy Joel isn’t the girly pop icon we expected, but he’s the one we needed.
“The refrain of “slow down, you’re doing fine” soothes a specific kind of Gen Z malaise, reminding kids raised on the immediacy of social media and the restless news cycle to take a step back.”
👃Sniffing Around Saks With Hunter Harris, Shop Rat
This post has inspired me to find a signature scent. Who’s coming on this adventure with me?“Walking around a department store without buying anything feels like getting away with a crime.”
📺 Couples Therapy, Crave
This show should be mandatory viewing in every relationship. The drama! The pain! I could watch this series for the rest of my life!
My Summer TBR
I’m so excited to take these 2024 to the beach. Tell me what else I should add (and what you want to read for the book club!)
🐖 Come and Get It, Kiley Reid
From the author of Such a Fun Age, this book promises a messy campus drama with a ton of tension and bad behaviour.
👩💻 I Hope This Finds You Well, Natalie Sue
An office comedy about an admin worker who accidentally gains access to her colleagues’ private messages.
⏰ The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley
A time travel sci-fi/romance/spy thriller/workplace drama that’s been all over the “best books of the year so far” lists.
Quick Book Report
I love the StoryGraph chart that logs how many pages vs. books I read in a month. Summer is always hit or miss for me with reading, so we’ll see how squiggly these lines end up…
Last Thought:
