Melting Pages
Book Reviews and Recommendations
June 2019 Wrap Up
When I started writing this post I was thinking to myself that I probably only finished two or three books in June. After I went to my Goodreads, I realized that I actually read FIVE books! I seem to have these cycles where I have a good reading month where I read 7+ books, then a few months where I don’t read as much. But I’ve also been trying to get through books that are much larger so it of course takes me longer to read them.
Out of the five books I read in June all five of them were five star reads! That sounds like it was meant to be – five five star reads. I read one romance, one sci-fi, one urban fantasy, one fantasy/sci-fi, and one epic fantasy, so I was pretty diverse this month as well. But you’re probably wondering what the books were. Well, here they are!
Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
I don’t know if I’ve even fully processed the events that happened in this book yet. It was a wild ride from beginning to end, and I was blown away by how well these two authors work together to make such a seamless piece of work! If you asked me to pick out who wrote what, I don’t think I would be able to tell the difference. I’m a huge fan of multiple POV’s in books, and this one has 6 or 7 of them. Don’t let that scare you though, they all work perfectly together and the transitions between POV’s is hardly noticeable. I’m impatiently waiting for the second book to find out what happens to these characters! I have a full review of this book available.
Storm Front by Jim Butcher
Critiques of a Fangirl raves about this series over on twitter and watching her share her feelings made me want to pick up this book ASAP and I was not disappointed! I loved Harry and his personality! I’m excited to learn more about his past and about this world and what creatures there are. I don’t really read a ton of urban fantasy anymore, so I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. I liked how Harry wasn’t a perfect character, he made mistakes and doesn’t know how to talk to women and is fairly dorky with his long black duster and cowboy boots (even when wearing sweatpants). I’ve heard that the series gets even better the farther into the books you get, so I’m excited to see where they go!
Our Dark Duet by Victoria Schwab
This was an amazing continuation and ending to This Savage Song. I loved seeing what happened to both Kate and August, and the insight we get into their characters as well as the monsters in this world was great. There is just something about the way Schwab writes her characters that just sucks you in and keeps you entertained. She can really make you love characters you should hate and vice versa, and it’s one of the reasons that Schwab is on my list of favorite authors. I did end up having quite a few questions by the end which would normally drive me crazy, but in this case I didn’t find it hard to swallow. I even got a little teary-eyed at the ending because I NEVER thought it would end like that.
The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan
GUYS. Is it possible to read the first book in a 14 book series and declare that the series is one of your new favorites? Because I think that is what this series will be. I’ve been wanting to start this series for quite a while but a few things made me finally pick it up: first, the Amazon TV series based on these books is in the works, and second, one of my favorite booktubers Daniel from Daniel Greene loves this series and does a lot of discussion videos on it that I really want to watch. I know a lot of people have some issues with how similar this was to LOTR, but I know from Daniel (who is my WOT go-to now) that Robert Jordan MEANT for it to feel like LOTR. And if you know me, you know my love of LOTR. I’m just under halfway through book 2 right now and I’m loving that one just as much!
Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
After seeing some snippets of dialogue from this book on twitter had me dying of laughter, I knew I needed to read this book and went over to my old friend Amazon and ordered it! Let me tell you that that was probably one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I laughed, I cried, and I swooned over both Alex and Henry. There are so many things about this book that I loved that if I were to list them here, we would be here all day and this would end up being a gush post instead of a wrap up. I need this in movie form RIGHT NOW. (I also need the Claremont’s to be real so that Alex’s mother can be our president, okay?) If you haven’t read this book yet I 100% recommend this to EVERYONE.
Melting Pages 
It’s funny. I’ve also wanted to start WoT because Daniel can’t stop raving about it
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lol after finishing the first book I can totally see why he raves about it! Especially if the books just continue to get better.
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I never liked The Wheel Of Time, I love LOTR but this was trying too much to be like it for me. But it was some time ago I didn’t read much fantasy then. Love V.E Schwab only started reading her books this year, have to get through my tbr to read more. A Darker Shade of Magic was brilliant
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Knowing that Robert Jordan meant for the first book to be extremely similar to LOTR made it easier, I believe that the rest of the series is much different than LOTR. I also think ADSOM is amazing!
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Woah, you’ve been super productive! I loved your review of Aurora Rising! I really enjoy Robert Jordan and V. Schwabs works too!
-Emma 🙂
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Thank you! Just wait until you see my July wrap up, it’ll make me look even more productive (even if I don’t feel productive lol).
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Looking forward to it!
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