 Hi everyone, welcome back to my channel. I hope you're all doing really well. So today I'm going to be talking to you about my August recent reads, better late than never. So again, I read quite a lot in August. I read around 10 books I think. And honestly, I've just been having the most fun with my reading recently. I just feel spoiled for choice between Gifts from Publishers and the book Alonglist being announced and new releases. I have had so much to read. I've been reading a really fun mix as well. I've been reading literary fiction, historical fiction, classics, fantasy, poetry, and also translated fiction YA and thrillers. Who am I? So yes, lots of good books have been read. Let's get into them. The first book I read in August was Imperfect Women by Araminta Hall. I reviewed this one for NetGalley via audiobook. My first ever NetGalley audiobook, very exciting. And it was a lot of fun. So this is a psychological mystery type novel that focuses in on three female best friends, Nancy, Mary, and Eleanor, when Nancy is murdered. We read the novel from all three women's perspectives, learning about their respective lives and relationships and deep buried secrets. So I enjoyed this book. I was kind of in the mood for something a bit more fast paced and a bit more plot driven than I usually read. And it really was enjoyable to listen to this story and just be taken along for the ride. I enjoyed that it was more character focused than novels of this type typically are. I really enjoyed learning about the three different women. They were all quite intriguing. That being said, this book didn't impress me in any way, and I do think elements of it were a bit far-fetched. I wasn't completely sold on everything that happened and the ways in which the characters interacted at times. And unfortunately, the biggest problem that I had with this book is that I guessed the ending. And that just isn't really what you want, is it, from a mystery crime thriller. So yeah, not much more to say about this one. I enjoyed listening to it at the time, but I didn't think it was brilliant. Honestly, I suspect I will probably forget all about this in a few months' time. Harsh but true. So in the end, I gave this one three stars. Next I picked up How Much of These Hills is Gold by C. Pam Zhang. Set in the Gold Rushiers in the Old Western America, this is a historical novel focusing in on one Chinese-American family through a few different timelines. It primarily focuses in on siblings Lucy and Sam when their father dies and they are left parentless. So I kindly received this copy of this book from the publisher. It is currently on the long list for the Booker Prize. It is receiving tons of praise. And after reading it myself, I kind of have mixed feelings. So there was a lot that I liked about this book, and it was technically very good in a lot of ways. The writing in here is gorgeous. It feels very confident and very accomplished and intentional. I loved the descriptions in here and the ways in which they managed to bring alive the setting so wonderfully. The setting was incidentally my favourite aspect of this novel. It felt very unique to me, and I found the whole thing to feel very vibrant. Unfortunately, the thing that let me down in this novel were its characters. This novel is primarily the story of Lucy and Sam and their relationship with one another and an exploration of different facets of their identities. And unfortunately, I just wasn't totally convinced by them. Lucy and Sam are meant to be very different from one another. We are told that they are very distinct characters. I didn't ever feel as though we really got given an authentic voice from Lucy, so I was stopped from being able to build up a really believable picture of the two characters. So while I found a lot to appreciate in this novel, my disconnect from the characters just really stopped me from being fully present. I felt like I could see everything that was going on, but I couldn't quite touch it, if you know what I mean. So this was a little bit of a disappointment for me. I wanted to love it a lot more than I did, and in the end I gave it three stars. The next book that I read in August was Summer Water by Sarah Moss. So this is a book that I was highly, highly anticipating ever since reading and adoring Ghost Wall last year. I mentioned this book in my anticipated 2020 releases video, and I was over the moon when I received this lovely proof copy from the publishers. So this is a pretty slim literary fiction novel taking place on the longest day of summer when 12 different people are on holiday in a Scottish cabin park. We follow all of these different characters over this very short period of time as the night begins to fall when eventually a tragedy occurs. So I really enjoyed this book. Sarah Moss is undeniably a great talent. She just knows what she is doing. Her writing is so precise, so gorgeous. She flips between elongated, beautiful descriptions, and scathing one-liners so seamlessly. This is a very contemporary feeling novel. It definitely speaks to a lot of today's issues. All of the wider themes in here are so perceptive and so unapologetic. I also loved the atmosphere that Sarah Moss creates in here. It was one of my favourite elements of Ghost Wall as well. She really manages to build up such claustrophobic, tense atmospheres filled with bodies and beliefs and conflicting views. I also love the structuring in here. I loved focusing in on lots of different characters over a very short period of time. I thought it was very clever and definitely helped build up this sense of tension and impending chaos. While I did find the characters in here to be interesting, they weren't quite distinct enough for me. A few of the voices were quite similar and I did find myself getting a little bit confused as to who was who and who was part of which family. So that stopped me really connecting to the book and fully falling in love with it, which was definitely a shame. So in the end, I would say I didn't quite love this one as much as Ghost Wall. It didn't quite have the same impact on me, but I did still think it was brilliant. I would highly recommend this one to anyone who thinks it sounds interesting or if you're already a Sarah Moss fan, and in the end I gave it four stars. Next I picked up The Great Godden by Meg Rossoff. This is another new book that I was highly anticipating and was kindly sent a proof copy of. It is a YA contemporary novel telling the story of a teenage girl and her family one summer when two mysterious boys enter their lives and come to stay in a holiday home near them. So as I said in my anticipated book releases of 2020 video, basically the only reason I was excited about this book is because it is Meg Rossoff. I adored Meg Rossoff when I was a young teenager. I was very excited to see that she had a new book coming out and I was just keen to see whether I would still love her novels just as much. The answer is not so much. So this book was okay. It has a very basic YA summer romance plot and honestly the storyline doesn't take it anywhere different either. I was kind of expecting something surprising to happen in the plot, but it just didn't really. That being said I did read this book very quickly and I did enjoy following the plot. Sometimes you just want a easy quick romance read I guess. The writing in here was pretty nice. Meg Rossoff is clearly a very competent writer, but I didn't find it to be anything special. I did enjoy the setup of the characters. I particularly enjoyed all of the different family dynamics that we had going on in here. They were quite intriguing. Interestingly it was actually the voice of the protagonist that I found to be the least convincing throughout the book. I noticed that she didn't really speak much in the first half, which is fine, but I just didn't really feel like I got enough to really get a grip on her. There were a few little inconsistencies that did niggle at me throughout, but to be fair this is a proof copy. I'm wondering whether they were going to be ironed out in time for the first print run. So as you can probably tell I found this book to be very average. It was exactly what you would think it would be. I can't say I would recommend it, but it wasn't bad either, so in the end I gave this one three stars. Next I picked up Homecoming by Luanne Goldie. This was another highly anticipated release of mine. Thank you so much to the lovely Lisa Milton at HQ for sending me over this copy. This novel moves between London and Kenya over a couple of different timelines and primarily explores the relationship between two young women who meet at university and also the life of the son of one of the women when he becomes a young adult. So I read Luanne Goldie's other novel Nightingale Point earlier this year and really really enjoyed it. I loved her characters and the themes she was exploring and I just thought she had tons of potential. I am very pleased to report that I also really enjoyed this one. I love novels that explore different timelines through alternating chapters, especially when this is used to build up a sense of mystery and intrigue, and that is definitely what is going on in here. I love the way in which Luanne Goldie manages to balance these universal themes of love and friendship and identity, all things that I love to read about in literary fiction, while also providing you with a sitting on the edge of your seat plot. It's like the best of both worlds. I really enjoyed the characters in this novel. They are definitely Luanne Goldie's strongest element in my opinion. Both of the main female characters were great. I loved learning about their different personalities. If anything, I would have actually liked to get to know them even more. I would have loved to witness more of their friendship when they were younger. The same with Kiyama, the son. I loved his character. I found him to be particularly convincing and endearing. I also would have loved to explore his character even more than we got to. So overall I would say I really enjoyed this novel. I do think Luanne Goldie has stepped up her game since Nightingale Point. We're feeling a bit more accomplished, a bit more focused right the way through to the end, which is really nice to see. I would definitely recommend this one if you're interested, and in the end I gave it 3.5 stars. Next up I read Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte. So in August I realised that I hadn't read a classic in like months. I'd had so many exciting new releases to read that backlist reading had kind of got pushed to one side. And it just got to the point where I was massively craving reading a classic. So I put my new reading on pause and picked up this one. Ever since reading The Tenant of Wildfell Hall last year and absolutely adoring it, I have wanted to read more Anne Bronte. And now that I have read Agnes Grey it is confirmed that Anne Bronte is indeed my favourite Bronte sister. Agnes Grey follows the story of a young woman named Agnes who sets out into the world on her own to become a governess to help her newly impoverished family. I adored this book. I absolutely loved Agnes as a character. She is so sweet and sheltered and idealistic, but at the same time so determined to prove herself and help. She faces so many obstacles throughout this novel, but she always remains so strong and true to herself and she never loses her gentleness. I also really enjoyed reading about the side characters in here, all of the different people that Agnes meets along the way, and the children who she teaches. They were all quite varied and fascinating to read about. I loved the exploration of class and gender and education in here. I know that the book is heavily based off of Anne Bronte's own experiences, being a governess, and that really comes through. So I just adored this. It was everything that I wanted it to be. A wonderful story, brilliant characters, perceptive social commentary, such a good read, and in the end I gave it 4.5 stars. So for those of you who don't know, August was Women in Translation Month, and in celebration of this I listened to the audiobook of Drive Your Plough Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokozuk. I am not convinced on that pronunciation at all, I apologise. So this book was translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, who also read the audiobook, which I was kindly sent a copy of from the publisher. So I had never read anything by Olga Tokozuk before. I know that she was very popular a couple of years ago with her novel Flight when it won the Book International Prize, and she's always kind of been on my radar since then, so I was very happy to pick this one up. So I didn't know what to expect when I picked this book up, and it's still quite confusing to me as to what it is. I've heard it described as a noir crime novel, and it follows an eccentric six-year-old woman called Janina, who lives in a small Polish town, when multiple men in her town turn up dead. So while this is a crime novel, and the plot does somewhat drive the narrative forward, this is not fast paced at all. It is steady and reflective, and it read more to me like a character study than anything else. If you know anything about me and my reading tastes, then you will know that I really liked that. Janina is such a fascinating character. I was enthralled by her. She is odd, she has quirks, and she just felt so realistic to me. I really enjoyed her. I loved the themes explored in here of nature and animals. The men who keep turning up dead in the village are actually hunters, and Janina has this strange theory that it is actually nature killing these men in a bid to get its own back. We explore themes of sanity and madness, justice, and accountability. I also do have to add that I found the writing in here to be lovely. I don't know much about translated fiction at all. I am not an authority on the subject, but I do feel like Antonia Lloyd-Jones did a gorgeous job of translating this novel. It all came to life so well. I will say that I don't think I fully settled into the pace of this novel. I didn't necessarily emotionally connect to it, but it was definitely a very unique reading experience for me, which I really appreciated and really enjoyed. If this sounds like something you would enjoy then I would definitely recommend giving it a go, and in the end I gave it 3.5 stars. The penultimate book that I read in August was What Girls Do In The Dark by Rosie Garland. This is a proof copy of a new contemporary poetry collection coming out in October by Nine Arch Press, and you should all go out and pre-order this book right now because it is amazing. This is a very magical feeling, a poetry collection that plunges you deep into outer space. It explores themes of transformation and identity, while also playing with notions of science and imagination and the uncanny. So as you can probably already tell, I loved this poetry collection. I loved the themes that it explores and the techniques that Rosie Garland uses to do this. In this collection, outer space is used to explore inner space. The body and the self are made up of galaxies in here, with the collection ultimately looking at what it is to truly be yourself in all of your bright, amazing, or consuming glory. The imagery in this collection is just breathtaking. I absolutely adored it so much color and light, and I just adored this central idea of every individual encompassing so much incredible space. The language in here is also really great. I found it to be very affecting, quite powerful, and I really enjoyed reading this collection aloud. As with all poetry collections, there were some poems in here that I didn't connect with quite as much as others, and I did find there to be some slightly weaker and stronger moments. But overall, I found this to be a truly brilliant and thrilling collection. I think so many people here on Booktube would really enjoy this, and in the end I gave it 4.5 stars. And the final book that I read in August was Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi. This is another book-along-listed book, the book-along-listed book that I was most excited about, in fact. I actually received two copies of this book by the publisher, I'm assuming by mistake, so I actually gave away one of the copies over on Twitter. If you're not following me on Twitter already, please go and do so. I rant about books and post pretty pictures. Set in modern-day India, this book explores a fraught mother-daughter relationship when the mother Tara eventually grows old and relies on her daughter to take care of her. So unfortunately, I didn't love this book as much as I wanted to. It started off super strong, the writing is really quite wonderful, it's very sharp and quite dry I would say. It was all very interesting and felt very well thought through. I was also very intrigued by the mother-daughter relationship in here. We get to learn about them when the daughter is younger and when Tara leaves her marriage and the two have to live on the streets. I love exploring memory in novels and the subjective unknowable nature of truth. I also really enjoyed the idea that as Tara gets older and starts to lose her memory, the two women must come together to make peace with this haunting and tumultuous past that they share. So the whole setup really worked for me. It seemed like there was going to be a lot of really interesting stuff in here for me to pick apart. But for some reason, I just couldn't emotionally engage with this novel. I can't quite put my finger on why, because like I say, the writing was good, the characters felt pretty well drawn. Perhaps it was something to do with me not liking the characters basically at all in this book, which is fine as a rule but in that case I need to find the characters interesting. And I kind of didn't in here. I also didn't really relate to either of the characters much at all throughout, so perhaps that was another barrier. So this one has kind of stumped me to be honest. Like I say, I didn't think it was bad, it was technically pretty good, but I just didn't like it. So in the end, I'd probably give this one 2.5 stars, but if it sounds interesting to you, then give it a go. So there we have it. Those were all of the books that I read in August. Thank you so much for listening to me rant about them. As always, please do let me know if you've read any of these books. Please let me know what you thought about them down below in the comments. And also let me know what you've been reading in August. Is there anything particularly good that I should know about? Thank you so much for watching everyone. You're all the best. I hope you're having nice weeks, and I will hopefully see you soon with another video. Bye!