Book 637: The Vanished Bride (A Brontë Sisters Mystery #1) – Bella Ellis

As I mentioned in my June recap, I sort of Twitter-shamed Berkley into granting me access to this book—and I do still feel a little guilty about it. I tweeted because I was so mad that sites like NetGalley force bloggers/reviewers and publishers into tiny little boxes.

How are you supposed to represent everything you are as a blogger/reviewer when they give you 50 words or less and that’s about it? I get they’re trying to provide a service, but it’s like come on be user friendly for all the users. Why would I include that I have dedicated Jane Austen and Brontë pages on my website when I read hundreds of other books. UGH. Either way, the kind people at Berkley took pity on me and granted me access to the review copy and here I am.*

Book 635: Severance – Ling Ma

I’ve been digesting this one for a little over a week as I write this (it’s posting much later than that). I very much enjoyed the work, but I’m still not sure how I feel about it.

The story follows first generation immigrant Candace Chen after an apocalyptic virus has decimated the human population creating habit zombies. You loose all higher function and go about doing a habit/routine until you die. The problems that Candace faces (and even creates in some occasions) are uniquely urban and (predominantly) millennial.

Book 634: The Mother of the Brontës – Sharon Wright

I somehow managed to read a biography of Maria Branwell Brontë prior to reading a biography of any of her offspring. I’m not sure why, but when I saw this one on NetGalley it just spoke to me.*

Maybe it’s because I finally got to visit The Brontë Parsonage last year, or maybe I some how knew that Kirkstall Abbey (which I visited over a decade ago while living in Leeds) was connected to the Brontës without really knowing it. Or maybe, like Wright, I was appalled that I spent a considerable amount of time less than 60 miles from their home. Or maybe it was just another opportunity to revisit God’s Own Country via this book which Wright references. Who knows?

May Recap 2019

I would say I don’t know how I only read three books this month, but honestly I’m SURPRISED I read even that many, so yeah. May was an incredibly busy and hectic month, but there were also a few moments of pure relaxation.

After celebrating our 5th anniversary in Salem/Rockport, MA, Tim and I spent Memorial Day weekend with friends up in Maine (see lovely view above). In between, I purchased a condo (WTF?!) which included a whirlwind 24 hour trip down to VA, and got a whole lot of crap done at work.

Book 615: Pride – Ibi Zoboi

It took a lot of effort not to read the Goodreads comments on this one. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to, but I knew I would get mad after I read the first one and it legit said “this is nothing like Pride and Prejudice, but maybe I’m wrong because I haven’t read it in a while.”

Don’t get me wrong, there are major deviations from Pride and Prejudice, but how could there not be. The OG is set in 1797, this is set in modern day Brooklyn (Bushwick, specifically). The OG is about decently rich (aka they own land and make money from others, but poor compared to the really rich) British family and their neighborhood and this is about poor Haitin-Dominican family and their neighborhood. OF COURSE THERE ARE GOING TO BE DIFFERENCES.