The 5 Books I Read Last Month (July 2024)

I recently was thinking about how it might be fun to do a monthly round up of books I finished in the past month; however, I was not expecting all of the books recently to be so….. mid. I’m thinking this won’t necessarily replace the more in-depth book reviews that I do, but this will be more of a rating and quick thoughts! Hopefully next month will have some slightly better books though 😉

If you use Goodreads, my profile is linked here. Let’s be friends! (Btw, I desperately need to step up to make my 75 book goal this year!)

If you read something particularly amazing this past month, share in the comments! I’m always looking for some new reads 🙂

Dare To Lead by Brené Brown

3.75/5 stars

I really enjoy Brené Brown for non-fiction books having to do with emotions and connecting with people. I’m not even sure why I went with this one, but it is a good book to read if you are a leader, own a business, work with/manage people, etc. I basically don’t do those things currently since I stay at home with our son, BUT I still think it had good things to glean from it! It’s not my fave Brené Brown (Atlas of the Heart is my fave), but it was still good!

FYI: I did this one via audio book.

The Villa by Rachel Hawkins

3.5/5 stars

Some friends and I decided to all read this one together as a mini-book club and it was pretty good! It is about a writer going through a divorce who reconnects with her childhood best friend and they end up going to spend the summer in Italy together to try to write. They find out a murder had occurred in the house years ago so she tries to put pieces together. I thought the ending ended up falling a bit flat, and it wasn’t really a thriller like I thought it was. That being said, I still enjoyed myself while reading it, but I don’t think I would really recommend it with my whole self.

All Signs Point to Malibu by Jennifer Snow

3/5 stars

I was sent this book as an ARC from the publisher, so it actually doesn’t come out until next month on September 17th! I think this is great for someone just wanting a formulaic romance novel with a slight twist. It’s a nice easy beach read. It had tropes of enemies to lovers and forced proximity, if you enjoy that type of book. I personally wasn’t super sucked in by the characters or their relationship, but I still enjoyed reading it!

The Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood and Ash Book #3) by Jennifer L. Armentrout

3.25/5 stars

This is the 3rd book in the From Blood and Ash series. Unfortunately, it wasn’t my favorite in the series (I LOVED book 1!), but book 2 and 3 haven’t been as great to me. But if you like ACOTAR, Crescent City, or Romantasy in general, you may enjoy Blood and Ash!

Hope Rides Again by Andrew Shaffer

2.75/5 stars

This one… I almost didn’t include on here HAHA

We read this one as a JOKE because it was like $2 at Ollie’s and we thought it was just so ridiculous and camp that we had to read it. It actually did make me laugh in some parts, but overall, it was so ridiculous I actually didn’t know how to rate it. I do think it was relatively self-aware though, which helps 😉

This post may contain affiliate links. Please see policy page for more information.