It’s been a strange reading month for me. I’ve read a lot, far more than usual, and reviewed very little. The majority of that is due to rereads. After Readathon last month, I felt like diving back in to some of my old favorites. First I listened my way through the Cormoran Strike series by Robert Galbraith. Then I started up with the Raven Cycle audiobooks again. In between, I read a few new-to-me books. Those I enjoyed, I reviewed (or will review soon). Those I didn’t…well, I’ll just do a couple mini-reviews below. Beyond that, tons of my library holds all came in at once. Over a dozen arrived in the course of two weeks, many of them right before my mini-vacation. I have a whole stack to preview and either keep to read or cull from my to-investigate list. So far I’ve only made it through a few. The ones I still have left to go through (or plan to read through to completion) are pictured to the left, excluding the half-dozen in my audio queue.

And now, the mini-reviews:

The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty
After my last experience with Moriarty, I wanted to read more. This book captured me right away, but when the titled-secret finally appeared, I felt sick. Nothing could make this secret okay, and the way the book dealt with it just furthered my sick-feeling. I had sick-dreams and a lot of immediate icky depression following my reading of the book. It was well-written, but completely turned me off of reading more Moriarty books for awhile, I’m afraid. There was one quote I liked, though:

There was no such thing as a good divorce for children. She’d read that somewhere, just a few weeks ago, before all this. Even when the split was perfectly amicable, even when both parents made a huge effort, the children suffered.

Miss You by Kate Eberlen (audio)
I loved the premise of this one. Tess and Gus are meant to be, but they keep almost-meeting and missing their chance. The book takes us over sixteen years until they finally do meet. Once again, I loved this one at first. Both Tess and Gus’ stories were interesting. However, at one point they both grew to be unlikable characters, and their individual lives went on for way too long. Probably 90% of the book was separate, and only 10% at the end once they finally meet. Maybe even less. It meant the book dragged on very slowly after a time, and then rushed at the end. There were some things about after they meet that really bothered me, but I won’t reveal them for spoiler-sake. The premise is one I always find interesting, but I often find the execution disappointing, and Miss You followed that same pattern. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the audio performance (Anna Acton and Finlay Robertson) either.