July 2021: A Thrilling Summer
Each year, several of my fellow bookclub members and I embark on a thriller packed summer. Horror, thrillers, and mystery have been my favorite fiction genres for ages, but there’s always room for more. Even though I don’t break my “at least 50% nonfiction” rule, I always enjoy a little more suspense in June, July and October.
*Local Woman Missing* (F) was a surprise standout of the month, while *Mindf*ck* (NF) borders on real life horror and is worth reading if you’re concerned about weaponizing data.
“We are socialized to place trust in our institutions—our government, our police, our schools, our regulators. It’s as if we assume there’s some guy with a secret team of experts sitting in an office with a plan, and if that plan doesn’t work, don’t worry, he’s got a plan B and a plan C—someone in charge will take care of it. But in truth, that guy doesn’t exist. If we choose to wait, nobody will come.”
— Christopher Wylie, *Mindf*ck*
📚⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
*Local Woman Missing* by Mary Kubica (F) // [Thriller; mystery: A perfect summer read I was not expecting. Looking forward to more Kubica!]
*Leave the World Behind* by Rumaan Alaman (F) // [Thriller; mystery: An atmospheric slow burn and case study on the anxiety of the unknown. Delightfully uncomfortable.]
*Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics* by bell hooks (NF) // [Feminism; politics: Introduction to intersectional feminist theory peppered with personal anecdotes.]
*The Good Sister* by Sally Hepworth (F) // [Thriller; mystery: Never were there ever more devoted sisters—I’m always a sucker for sister thrillers.]
*The Final Girl Support Group* by Grady Hendrix (F) // [Horror; thriller: Not my favorite Hendrix, but still fun; looking forward to the screen adaptation.]
*Animal* by Lisa Taddeo (F) // [Psychological literary fiction: I actually kind of loved this, even though I REALLY didn't like Taddeo's nonfiction book, Three Women. Brutal, raw and urgent.]
*When the Stars Go Dark* by Paula McLain (F) // [Mystery; police procedural: Came for the gorgeous cover, stayed for the story.]
*Nine Perfect Strangers* by Liane Moriarty (F) // [Women’s lit: Intriguing premise and totally ridiculous, I enjoyed the black humor and flawed characters.]
📚⭐️⭐️⭐️
*The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War* by Malcolm Gladwell (NF) // [History; WWII: My 7th MG read, his books are always interesting and entertaining.]
*Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America* by Christopher Wylie (NF) // [Politics; security: “The millennials’ first great whistleblower,” Wylie exposed the rampant misuse of data in Silicon Valley and sparked some of the largest multinational investigations into data crime ever.]
*Lisey's Story* by Stephen King (F) // [Horror; ghost suspense: The good and the bad kind of balanced this out to make it an okay read; very imaginative.]
*Survive the Night* by Riley Sager (F) // [Horror; suspense: Aggressively average and endlessly entertaining like all Sager books, I simply cannot stop reading these popcorn thrillers.]
📚⭐️⭐️
*Crying in H Mart* by Michelle Zauner (NF) // [Memoir; grief & bereavement: I should have vetted this one better before committing, definitely not an uplifting book and it is very slow to boot.]
*In the Dream House* by Carmen Maria Machado (NF) // [Memoir; LGBT: Chock full of depressing memories—according to Good Reads, I’m in the minority.]
