In July this year I was working at a couple of my jobs–for Sean Penn, for Aaron and Tami, on my bags/Etsy shop, and still selling Book ‘Em as per usual. And then I also went on the houseboat for 11 days for Adam’s 40th Birthday (pictures here). I was still kind of sick and broken but getting better. And I read some books! 19 to be precise (and you know how I love my precise math). One of them was Fifty Shades of Grey. I wanted to get that out right at the beginning so you’d know what kind of month it was (ONE WHICH IS STILL AFFECTING MY WRITING HABITS). I would say I’m sorry, but I kind of love shouty-capitals too much to really mean it. I am sad about the demise of eye rolling as a form of free expression though, I will say that. I crafted a whole fictional scene in my head about it WHERE NO ONE GOT SPANKED.

Books Read: 19
Books Partially Read: 8
Books Re-read: 3
Books Bought: 4
Money Spent: $28
Books Borrowed: 20
Books Given: 1

Books on To-Be-Read Shelf: NO IDEA.

Favorite Books This Month: Honestly, nothing so great that it deserves mention. Maybe Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhry. I read that for the last Finer Things Club (pictures here). It was delightful. This was my book report to Nuala about it (since we were reading books set in Atlanta for the sole purpose of telling her about Atlanta, her new home), “driving miss daisy is not really relevant to the atlanta of TODAY i don’t think. also you’re not a rich old white widow hiring a black man to chauffeur you around so that’s not relevant either. but you could be SOMEDAY. so make sure you let him have a tin of canned tuna every once in a while (that’s a thing). i thought it was a really good play. well written and detail articulated in tiny ways.”

You know what I didn’t like though? LOTS OF THINGS. All right, I can see you rolling your eyes at the shouty-capitals. Shut it.

Least favorite books: Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James. You know what? DON’T WRITE A BOOK ABOUT BDSM WHEN YOU’RE GOING TO DENIGRATE PEOPLE WHO CHOOSE THAT LIFESTYLE. Also, maybe just don’t write a book when you’re a shitty shitty writer. LIFE LESSON.

Also I disliked: Scandal of the Year by Olivia Drake (some crappy romance), The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter (I was very sad about not loving this one), Deep Dish by Mary Kay Andrews (which Christine read for FT Club), The Demon Trapper’s Daughter by Jana Olivier (one of my other Atlanta ones–YA supernatural BAD), Purity by Jackson Pearce (really only her djinn one was any good and even that one wasn’t very good), and Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews (once you’ve already read the Anita Blake books apparently you just can’t commit yourself to reading similar things. Or at least *I* can’t.)

I also apparently liked (enough to put a heart by it anyway which in my comment system means I liked it a lot but didn’t think it was significantly awesome as literature [stars denote that]) Team Human by Justine Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan. I remember reading that one on the houseboat and I remember liking it but heart level of like? I don’t really remember that. There’s a new SRB that just came out though which I am uber-excited for–Unspoken. It should arrive this week in the mail. Fingers crossed, honey. I might just have to go re-read the Demon’s Lexicon trilogy to renew my (slightly) crazy love for SRB.