everything i read in june

a very mixed bag, also hello horror!

Somehow, we’re in the middle of summer. “The Schedule”— something I only pretend to have during the school year— is well and truly out the window. We stay up late, get up late, make sandwiches or order out for dinner, the kids are around, ALWAYS. Which means the reading pace has been a little slower, but I don’t mind.

I’ve been letting myself fully sink into my summer reading. Sometimes only getting a page before putting the book down, reading-and-re-reading sentences that strike me, and in general savoring every word.

This does mean I have quite the pile of books to get through on my trip to the cabin next week, but who cares? It’s summer. God forbid something should feel slow and luxurious. Let’s talk about the books of June.

Fiction

The Bone Queen by Will Shindler

This was my foray into being a NetGalley reader. NetGalley, for the uninitiated, is a platform you can join and submit requests to be an early reader and reviewer for books that aren’t out yet. If you’re new around here, my preferred genres tend to be: mystery, gothic mystery, literary mystery and the occasional thriller. So when I submitted a request to be an early reader for The Bone Queen, a book that slots under “horror”, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

But I really liked it! I think it was on the right side of scary for me and I’m always down for a bit of a psychological thriller too.

The story opens with Jenna and her sister on a boat to a small, remote island off the coast of Wales in search of Jenna’s teenage daughter Chloe, who’s gone missing and police are calling a runaway. (Side note: I had a strong negative reaction to the main characters’ names being Jenna and Chloe. I don’t know why.)

But Jenna knows something’s not right. Her daughter hasn’t brought her phone or any real personal belongings, and the weeks leading up to her disappearance Chloe has been acting strange and listless.

As Jenna searches for traces of her daughter on the island, she keeps coming up against a local legend about the Bone Queen, and when people start getting murdered on the island, she can’t help but feel it has something to do with her daughter.

I loved how unashamedly gothic and spooky this book was. There were some good twists and plot points I didn’t see coming at all. The only other horror book I’ve read is The Shining by Stephen King, so I don’t know how this compares with other books in its genre. But for a spooky, summer flick, I thought it was great!

The Colony by Annika Norlin (translated by Alice E Olsson)

Emelie is a young professional who experiences mental breakdown after the pressures of her job and general burnout. She heads to the remote woods of Sweden to collect herself and heal, when she stumbles upon a strange group of people in the forest near her campsite.

Over the course of the book, we learn the stories of each of the individuals in this strange “colony” and the paths that led them to this alternative, off-grid, lifestyle.

This book is gripping from the first page. I’ve heard the middle described as “slow” from other reviewers, but I found it captivating. Norlin does a brilliant job examining how we “choose” the people we surround ourselves with, and the power of suggestion and group think.

If you’re a fan of cult stories, or just group psychology in general, this book is for you. It’s brilliantly translated. To the point where I can’t believe it wasn’t written in English originally. (I’m currently reading a Nordic noir series that suffers from the opposite problem!)

Something about immersing yourself in the dense, lush, green Swedish forest feels right for summer reading.

Still Waters by Viveca Sten (translated by Marlaine Delargy)

Again, we’re smack dab in the Swedish summer for this series. I picked up this first book in the Sandhamn Murders series after watching The Åre Murders on Netflix and really enjoying it. If Elin Hilderbrand’s Nantucket series and Ann Cleeves Shetland series had a baby, it’d be this.

Set in an archipelago called Sandhamn off the southern seacoast of Sweden, in an affluent community, a body washes up on shore. The remains are too decomposed to be able to tell if it’s an accident or homicide, but when the victim’s only other living relative is brutally murdered three weeks later, the connection becomes impossible to ignore.

I don’t know if it is the translation that lets the writing down a bit, or if the originally copy needs help, but I found the writing on the sentence level to be distractingly elementary. However, I enjoyed the plot and being in the summer seaside community of Sandhamn, even with a murderer afoot. I’m currently reading the second book in the series so maybe that’s all the review you need in the end.

Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver

Okay technically I’ve got a few pages left of this one, but I’m counting it. I’ve been savoring this story. I don’t really want to leave the hillside of Zebulon County. This book follows the storylines of three characters: Deanna, a park ranger who prefers her own company and has committed her life to protecting coyotes in the forest mountains; Lusa, a scientist and the daughter of a Jewish-Palestinian immigrants who marries into a farming family whose customs are more confusing than the insects she studies; and Garnett, a curmudgeonly widower who’s grandfather settled and named Zebulon County and is working to develop a disease-resistant strain of chestnut— when he’s not being persecuted by his neighbor who doesn’t believe in pesticide farming.

Each of these three characters learn something about love, the world, and the will to live in the face of pain and suffering. They are stunningly written, and I know I won’t be ready to say goodbye when the time inevitably comes.

Non-fiction

Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty

When we were in Northern Ireland, my sister-in-law pressed this book in my hands and told me she was buying it for me (my love language, always). It’s a memoir written from the perspective of 16 year old, autistic Dara whose love for birds and the wild landscape of Northern Ireland is infectious.

The memoir takes place over the course of a year, chronicling Dara’s family move from Enniskillen to County Down near Kilkeel. Through his eyes, the world is soft, ever-surprising, and unfurling. He writes about rocks, trees, animals, and flowers with such tenderness they seem to come alive off the page. It was also moving to read about his struggle with mental health, his experiences with bullying at school, and his passion for saving the environment. Another book whose world I could have easily spent much more time in. Since publishing this memoir, Dara has written several other books including a children’s guide to the natural world. Will definitely be checking them out as well.

And that is all from me for June. Nothing makes me smile more than when I get messages from you all saying you’ve picked up your next read based off these recommendations. What are you reading this summer? What have you loved, what did you hate? What did you think you were going to hate but loved? I never get to talk about books as much as I want to, so please feel free to get nerdy in the comments with me.

If you need other recs, check out my previous month’s reading round-ups. It’s really fun to see the months starting to all line up! Oh! And happy 4th!