June looks rather better than May as far as books finished, but at least two of them were started before June (one of them many months before), and one was very short.
The Very Thought of You, Rosie Alison I've read SO many books set during World War II, and a majority of them set mainly in England, and this is another one. It's also far from the first one I've read about children sent to the country to avoid the bombing in London. This one still stands out for many reasons, though. For one thing, it keeps switching points of view, so it's hard to say that the eight-year-old girl who first seems to be the main character IS the main character, but although most of the other characters are adults, and the book is intended for adults, the child's voice is very real and realistic, a child without being childish. This isn't a book about everything ending up wonderful, though. I had a premonition that certain people would die, who did, but other deaths took me totally by surprise. I think the thing that bothered me the most was the completely omniscient viewpoint. I don't mind when the reader knows what a particular character is thinking when other characters don't know, and when the author switches back and forth between characters (and these were not at all confusing, which some books are), but I think I generally feel that that's acceptable because that character COULD have written it down or told someone later...but it bugs me when there are things that nobody could possibly have known, such as a person's last thoughts before they died.
Changeling, Philippa Gregory Marie left a pile of Philippa Gregory books here, and a friend was here when Katie picked one up and asked if she could read it. I didn't know the book, but our friend Dena happened to be here at that moment and suggested that it might not be appropriate, but said she had some other books by that author, which were written for children. This is the first of the three books Dena gave Katie, and Katie talked me into reading it. I wouldn't have said it was "for children," so much, as I'd say Katie (just turned 12 last week) would be more or less the minimum age for this book...except then later I read one of Marie's books that is targeted at adults, and all of a sudden, Changeling (and the sequels) seemed totally innocent... Anyway, this book is the first of "The Order of Darkness" series, set in the 15th century in Europe (at least, the first three books are, and no more have been published as of yet). While it (and the others) CAN be read independently, there's definitely a story thread going through all of them that make them better to read one after another, and some plot points that only make sense when taking them together.
The Wings of a Falcon, Cynthia Voigt I have maybe a dozen or so of Cynthia Voigt's books, most of them from when I was a teenager. Homecoming is probably her most well-known one, contemporary and totally realistic fiction, along with its several sequels or spin-offs. Jackaroo was always my favorite of her books, though, set in an undetermined place or time, but giving the impression of being Medieval times in Europe, and never entirely clear about whether there was an element of fantasy or not. This book I picked up from the give-aways at the library, very excited to see a Cynthia Voigt book I didn't have (and the price was right!), then even more so when I noticed it said that it was a "companion" (not a sequel, but somehow related) to Jackaroo. I don't remember when I started this...probably last year. I found this very hard to get into, starting with a Lord-of-the-Flies situation, really (and THAT's a book I HATED...), and it mostly stayed on the shelf next to my bed. Sometimes I would pick it up and read a page or two, usually having to backtrack to figure out what on earth (or wherever this is set...) was going on and who the people were. (It didn't help any that one of the main characters didn't even have a name for quite awhile...) But at some point in June, I started to get into the book and I probably read 90% of it over two or three days. The connection to Jackaroo is extremely loose (I think the name of the possibly mythical character of Jackaroo is mentioned once, and that's it), but I take it that it's the same country, more clearly a made-up country in this book. I did enjoy the book...mostly. One person died who most certainly should NOT have died, but then, not a single one of Cynthia Voigt's books go for unequivocal happy endings, although possibly Jackaroo comes the closest. (Maybe that's why that's one of my favorite books. I like neatly tied up and basically happy endings. Real life doesn't have many of those, and I read to have something DIFFERENT from real life...)
Stormbringers, Philippa Gregory This is the second "Order of Darkness" book, and the "Order" gets "darker". I had many moments of wanting to tell off dense characters. But it was compelling enough to finish...
At Home in the World, Tsh Oxenreider This one is proof that my husband reads my blog! I'm pretty sure I never mentioned the book to him, but I did mention it in a blogpost, and all of a sudden, he presented me with this book. :-) Tsh's family (and no, her name is not a pseudonym nor is that a typo...her parents had decided that her name didn't need vowels) traveled around the world for one year, and this is a chronicle of that trip, with quite a lot more than just "we went there and did that." I enjoyed it very much.
A Miracle in the Making, Patricia Batoba Jones Well, once again...there's a reason that some books are only available free for Kindle. My main complaint about this book was that it would have seriously benefited from some decent proofreading. From ANY proofreading. Anyone can make typos, anyone can write run-on sentences, anyone can use non-standard grammar...but if one is going to get a book published, I think it's reasonable to at least make an attempt at having it proofread. This was about the author having a micro-preemie who (spoiler alert) survived, and that's wonderful. And her own spiritual journey during that time. Cool. Completely the kind of book I like, and with a happy ending. But exhausting to read, because there wasn't a page in it without multiple typos and weird grammar. And sentences starting with conjunctions. Fragments, too. It reads like a collection of blogposts. Maybe it was.
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