All the books I read in July 2023

I had a pride themed video call where we showed off all our favourite LGBTQ+ books, and even included tarot inspired writing. Thank you for my friend Cesca from the Lit group for recommending this book. I thought this was fantastic. This is loosely based of an old French legend set in Cornwall wa out a non-binary knight called Silence. Silence is biologically female but nature but is nutured to be a man. The conflict between nature and nurture is interesting. I also find the name Silence to be poignant as Silence is constantly struggling to conceal their true self.

This is one I picked up on my local library. I use the small library nestled in with a leisure centre as it’s the one closest to my house. What I like is that I can borrow books anywhere within libraries owned by the Oxford Country Council, and also return them to my loca library when I am done. We are lucky to have two main ones in Banbury.

At first I did skim through the chapters just to see what books he had read to see if there was any I had already read or ones I wanted to try. I love how it’s formatted and he mentions not only the books he has read, but the ones he bought too. Then when I read it properly I learned to appreciate the wit in Hornby’s writing.

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy is a charming book. I loved the art style and the words. It was very positive and uplifting. I think it would make a lovely gift. I remember when this book was popular and everyone was talking about it. My favourite thing are the illustrations, they are delightful to look at. It’s suitable for all ages and I love the handwritten feel it has.

This book I borrowed from the library. It was a useful book and it had a lot of insight. I kept saying I will try more of the prompts, but I never did. I renewed it few times thinking that I would, until I reached the renewal limit.

This book is Wasted Love and was written by our very own Poppythepoet, who is a regular poster on Vocal. The poetry is fantastic and beautiful and I wholeheartedly recommend this book.

One of the biggest classics in American literature. Some parts easy and other scenes hard to fathom. Scarlet O’Hara is a heroine that represents all the good and the bad. I wanted to hate her for how spoilt she was but in the end, I warmed up to her. Scarlet spends so much time chasing what she hasn’t got until she sees how much she has lost. The ending is poignant. I don’t think I have ever seen the film other than a few clips of it. The way the book concludes is brilliant because it’s clear Scarlet O’Hara develops and changes and how she finds a different goal in life whilst making me wonder what happens next.

A lot of hype for this book based on reviews I saw on Goodreads. A lot blogs for LGBT+ reads mentioned this book. It’s marked as having an enemies to lovers trope which I just didn’t get or see in this book. It certainly is cute and it feels like it used to be a Harry Potter fan fic where Draco and Harry are playing the roles of the characters. I did like reading this, but I wouldn’t consider it an enemies to lovers book.

The last book I read this month is another one written by another write on Vocal. You may know here on here as Vagabond_Writes. Dreion Allen had a top story on Vocal where she shared her first book baby into the world and I loved how sapphic the cover is. I bought it and read it last night and had another look through today. I love the layout, cover and aesthetics. My favourites were Lana Del Ray and Love in Despair.

My favourite book this month was Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. I loved the writing, the setting and the characters were endearing, especially Sunja and her two sons. I love how the book spans between Japan and Korea in between two world wars and how Korea splits into two. At first I didn’t get the title of the book until I read the arcs about Sunja’s sons and everything came together. I think it’s a great touch how the book goes through all of Sunja’s future generations. I think I would have loved it even more if the focus of the book stayed on Sunja. It made me want to eat some kimchi. I’m surprised this book only came out in 2017: it feels like it is a great classic from 20 years ago.