The 8 books I read in August, ranked

So, super cool of Neil Gaiman to retweet me last month. That was wild. Hello, new readers. Glad to hear you liked "The Unwritten" as much as I did! And "American Gods," of course.

Hurricane Dorian is banging down my door, and here I am writing about books. You know, the usual.

8. Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi: This was the first book I did not finish this year because it was just so awful. It was supposed to be YA dystopian romance. The thing I find most interesting about dystopian novels is… well, the dystopia. Good or bad, I’m curious about how authors construct their dystopian society. For this one, it seemed the flimsy setting was wrapped around an even flimsier love triangle. I wasn’t into the bizarre, stream-of-consciousness whiny garbage with weird strikethrough text that's supposed to reveal the trembling inner heart of the main character. And I don’t care how pretty the covers are, they will not tempt me into reading the rest of this series.

7. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card: I picked away at this book for MONTHS and I had A LOT of feelings about it. I didn’t know if I would finish it, either! First, the good: I appreciated how it seemed to predict the way anonymous bots dictate the social discourse online. The bad: I felt like Valentine got the shaft when she was one of the most brilliant characters in the book. She was called upon to nudge Ender (who got chance after chance to be brilliant and failed) in the right direction like a glorified door opener. She was forced to retire her online persona at the end because of reasons. I hated the way Valentine was treated! Her story was more interesting than whatever Ender was doing! The ugly: Orson Scott Card is a raging homophobe (it’s well documented, I’m not going to Google it for you, we’re all adults) and I don’t need that regressive nonsense all up in my sci-fi, thanks.

6. Umami Bomb: 75 Vegetarian Recipes That Explode With Flavor by Raquel Pelzel: I got a copy of this cookbook on NetGalley, and the food photography is so beautiful, but I could have used some more of it! I’m eager to try some of the recipes. Meat eaters who are interested in reducing their carbon footprint through diet would enjoy this book to help transition to vegetarianism. It has a recipe for breakfast spaghetti, for crying out loud! Who wouldn't want to eat spaghetti for breakfast?

5. When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon: This YA romance was constructed like a romantic comedy, and I really enjoyed listening to an audiobook of it. The awkwardness of young love made me giggle. Some of the parts where the heroes were teenager-petty made me cringe a bit. I was pleased it had a happy ending.

4. I Kill Giants by Joe Kelly: This graphic novel was recommended to me when I visited a comic book store in April in Philadelphia. It reminded me a lot of the movie plot of “A Monster Calls” by Patrick Ness (I want to read the book, but I haven’t yet, whoops) with a hint of “Bridge to Terabithia” by Katherine Paterson, which you know we all read and cried over around fourth grade or so.

3. The Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook (5th Edition) by James Wyatt, Robert J. Schwalb and Bruce R. Cordell: I was going to write my lengthy backstory about how I’ve wanted to learn how to play D&D for more than a decade, but that’s a lot less exciting than the lengthy backstory of my very first D&D character. Since this is "Caryn's Beach Reads" and not "Caryn's Elaborately Constructed D&D Characters," we won't get into it on this blog (yet.)

2. A Cosmology of Monsters by Shaun Hamill: This is a very surprising debut book that actually comes out later this month. I read an advance copy of it, and it’s very creepy in time for fall and Halloween! If you like cosmic horror, check it out (or I’ll lend you my copy.)

1. Circe by Madeline Miller: This was the empowering story about the ancient Greek demigoddess and sorceress, Circe, who lived on one of the islands Odysseus visited in “The Odyssey.” It's an older book that I'm pretty sure everyone has read already. I'm just late to the party. I listened to the audiobook, and the woman who narrates it has a lovely speaking voice. The writing was just gorgeous. I was a little weirded out by the ending, but I appreciated some of the themes.

I’m 6 books behind my 200-book goal at this time of the year, according to Goodreads. Better step it up, Caryn, or you’ll never make your goal!