The following is a short review of the six books I read during the month of June 2020, in order by author. All titles are shoppable by clicking on the cover images above. Read on for my July 2020 book recommendations. Enjoy!
Perfect Peace by Daniel Black
This was a book club pick and I couldn’t seem to put this one down. Daniel Black is an amazing storyteller whose novel is simultaneously heartbreaking and hopeful.
The novel centers around Perfect, who is the seventh child and only daughter in the Peace family. On her eighth birthday, Perfect finds out that she was actually born a boy, but her mother wanted to raise her as a girl for her own selfish reasons. Now, her mother says, she has to start being a boy.
With the help of his six older brothers, Paul begins a difficult journey of trying to fit himself into a box he never thought he’d have to put himself into, all because of a choice his mother made.
The story follows all seven Peace children through adulthood, and all of them have their own mountains to climb.
If you’re looking for a page-turner with a unique plot, excellent character development, and will keep you thinking for days afterwards, this is the one.
Click to purchase Perfect Peace:
The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian
Cassandra Bowden has a life that the younger me would have been envious of. Working as a flight attendant and getting to travel the world, living in an upscale apartment in New York with a view of the Empire State Building, and not having many stressors beyond deciding whether to take a taxi or the carpool to the airport for work.
Except, Cassandra has a habit of drinking her loneliness away, and pretending it doesn’t exist by spending her nights with random men she meets in foreign countries.
On a work assignment from New York to Dubai, she spends the night with one of her business class passengers. In the morning, her memory is splotchy, but she remembers having a great time the night before. She wakes up in his bed only to find him dead next to her, his throat slit .
This one will keep you up reading late into the night! Bonus: I just found out that this will be premiering as a mini series on HBO Max starring Kaley Cuoco!
Click to purchase The Flight Attendant:
Origin by Dan Brown
I purchased this when it was released in 2017, and finally just got around to reading it!
Fellow Dan Brown fans won’t need much of an explanation – this is the latest installment in the Robert Langdon/The DaVinci Code series.
What I love most about Dan Brown’s novels is how the setting almost becomes a secondary character to Robert Langdon. This particular novel takes place in Spain, as Langdon attempts to complete the work and mission of one of his recently-deceased students.
The central theme of this novel is artificial intelligence, and in true Da Vinci Code fashion, is filled with secret histories, cryptic symbols, secret religions, deciphering passwords, and classic adventure elements. Put simply, a great summer read!
Click to purchase Origin:
The Girl Before by JP Delaney
This novel, which has been picked up by Ron Howard to be made into a feature film, follows Emma and Jane and each chapter alternates between the point of view of these two characters.
Emma and Jane have never met and never will meet, but they have a lot in common. Both went through a traumatic experience that caused each to want to move to a new apartment. Each find a beautiful apartment on highly-desired Folgate Street that is somehow, miraculously, within their small budgets. It’s even mentioned by multiple characters in the book that they look alike.
One condition of living at the apartment on Folgate Street is that there is a very long list of strict rules to follow. The tenants must experience the apartment “as-is” without bringing in any of their own decor or furniture.
When Jane moves in, she learns that Emma was the previous occupant, and that Emma died in the apartment on Folgate Street. As Jane attempts to uncover more and more about what happened to Emma, the tension in the novel continues to build.
This one will keep you up and leave you wondering which characters can be trusted until the very last page!
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We Could Be Beautiful by Swan Huntley
I’ll be honest, I really didn’t love this one at first, and wasn’t sure I wanted to finish it all the way through. I’m really glad I stuck with it though, because it had an ending that I didn’t see coming!
This novel follows Catherine West, who was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. She starts the novel off complaining about her first-world problems. Not far into the book, she meets the man of her dreams. He proposes. They start planning their no-expenses-spared wedding.
This is the point at which I wanted to put the book down, but there was a hint of foreshadowing and the faintest sense of unease that kept me curious enough to keep reading.
This is at about the point where the novel reaches its apex. From here, things begin to unravel. There is something suspicious about Catherine’s husband-to-be, and even when Catherine discovers who he truly is, she considers pushing through with the marriage for her own selfish reasons.
Ultimately, I kept reading this book to find out what Catherine’s fiancé was hiding, and the other skeletons in her family’s closet. After that was revealed, I read to the end to find out what Catherine would do about all she had learned. It ended up being a great psychological suspense novel!
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The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
THIS. This is one of the best novels I’ve read in awhile any may continue to be one of my book recommendations for months to come.
Alicia is a famous painter married to a fashion photographer. The two seem to have the perfect life. However, hat image is shattered when her husband Gabriel returns home late one night. Alicia kills him, and then never speaks a word again.
Alicia spends her time after the murder secreted away in a psychiatric center. There, she is treated by a criminal psychotherapist named Theo.
Theo’s determination to get Alicia to talk in order to treat her begins to consume his daily life and affect his relationships outside of work.
The plot of this book is what obviously sucked me in, but what really impressed me is that I never saw the ending coming! That doesn’t happen very often for me. The author employed a storytelling method that is rarely done correctly. Alex Michalides, however, executed it perfectly, and knocked this novel out of the park!
Bonus: This novel has been picked up by Hollywood to be made into a movie. Can’t wait for that one!
Click to purchase The Silent Patient:
Looking for further book recommendations? Read my post here for my book recommendations from April 2020.
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