August and September was really a whirlwind couple of months. August was the calm before the storm. The sun was still shining, the weather warm. Summer was still present. There was an ease to the month, a lull, that I hadn’t felt in a while which is probably why I read so little in the month. My brain just wanted some time away, I guess.
September was a whole other story. I started the month off by spending a few days in one of my favourite places in the world, Montreal. I love Montreal and I loved being back in the city. I had already done all the touristy things the first time around, so I got to do a lot more exploring this time and I absolutely loved it. Montreal just has this vibe that I just vibe with. Unfortunately, my time in Montreal was way too short and I was thrown headfirst into reality the moment my plane touched down.
I started school again this September, which after being out of it for almost three years was definitely a shock to the system. When I started post-secondary, I had every intention of going to law school. I wanted to be an international human rights lawyer and work at the Haig prosecuting the world’s worst criminals but slowly and surely I learnt that being a lawyer was not for me. I’ve grown a lot, I think, since I walked across the stage to receive my degree that fateful June day and I’m now perusing what was once a distant dream of mine and an education, and hopefully a career, in publishing.
But enough about my life. Let’s get to the books I’ve read these past two months.
Here’s the list of books I read in the month of August and September:
- Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? – Kathleen Collins
- Citizen: An American Lyric – Claudia Rankine
- A Study in Scarlet Women – Sherry Thomas
- Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America – Michael Eric Dyson
- Sanctuary – Rebekah Weatherspoon
- Remedial Rocket Science – Susannah Nix
- America, Issues #4 – 6 – Script by Gabby Rivera, Art by J. Quinones
- Ms. Marvel, Issues #19 – 21 – Script by G. Willow Wilson, Art by Marco Failia
- Black Bolt, Issues #2 – 4 – Script by Saladin Ahmed, Art by Christian Ward
- Invincible Iron Man, Issues #7 – 10 – Script by Brian Michael Bendis, Art by Stefano Caselli, Marte Garcia
- Black Panther, Issues #14 – 17 – Script by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Art by Chris Sprouse & Wilfredo Torres
- Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, Volume 3: Smartest There is – Script by Amy Reeder and Brandon Montclare, Art by Natacha Bustos & Ray Anthony Height
- The Unstoppable Wasp, Volume 1: Unstoppable – Script by Jeremy Whitley, Art by Elsa Charretier & Megan Wilson
- Hawkeye: Kate Bishop, Volume 1: Anchor Points – Script by Kelly Thompson, Art by Leonardo Romero, Michael Walsh, & Jordie Bellaire
- So Sweet – Rebekah Weatherspoon
- So Right – Rebekah Weatherspoon
- So For Real – Rebekah Weatherspoon
- The Seventh Plague – James Rollins
- Wonder Woman: Warbringer – Leigh Bardugo
So let’s dive into my favourites that I’ve read these past two months.
Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America was one of those books that just come to you at the right moment in time. I started reading the book shortly after Charlottesville. Racial tensions have always existed within the United States, but with the most recent Presidential elections, they have risen to the surface in levels not seen in a long time. But with the rise in hate, so have raised the voices of those who oppose it. Many of those voices are voices of people of colour, who have never stopped calling for change, for reconciliation, for reparations for the original sins on which the United States is built upon but as Dyson clearly states in this book is that these voices are not enough to change the tide. Allies are needed, allies that are willing to work, to listen, to stand back, to emphasize and work towards a solution to these problems is what is needed and Dyson states in many ways in which allies can go about doing so. It’s a book that I think everyone should read and needs to read, especially in the society in which we live today.
Wonder Woman: Warbringer is the newest take on Diana Prince’s, aka. Wonder Woman’s, origin story. And it’s arguably one of my favourites. It’s also one of the most diverse of any of Diana’s origin’s stories that I’ve either read or watched before. It’s a coming-of-age story. Diana makes a decision, one that changes the course of her entire life. Diana saves Alia, a young woman, whose ship was deliberately bombed and brings her back to Themyscira. Unbeknownst to Diana and Alia, Diana brought a Warbringer onto the shores of the hidden island. Alia is a Warbringer, a direct descendant of Helen of Troy and the Goddess Nemesis. She is destined to bring chaos and death upon the Earth unless she is stopped. To save Alia and the world, Diana and Alia journey to a sacred spring to cleanse her of the Warbringer destiny and destroy the line of Warbringers altogether. Aided by their friends, these two young woman face foes, both human and supernatural, to write their own destinies. I absolutely loved this book, much more than I thought I would’ve. It brings a fresh take to how Diana begins her path towards being the superhero we know as Wonder Woman. Like many of the books that I read and have fallen in love with, it’s the relationships within this story that makes the story for me. I loved the friendship between Diana and Alia and the journey these two women go on. This is a brilliant book, especially if you’re a fan of Wonder Woman or if you want to start exploring that world.
September was a bounty for good comics and complex and brilliant heroines. Ms. Marvel and America delved deeper into their ongoing arcs, bringing to light more of the stories and characters that G. Willow Wilson and Gabby Rivera are telling in these brilliant works of art. Hawkeye: Kate Bishop, The Unstoppable Wasp, and Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur also made their presence felt via their trades and brought new characters, in Kate Bishop and Nadia Pym into my reading life. These characters and their stories are particular ones that I love to read about because of the journeys these characters are embarking on. They face challenges that are both so very real and mundane to the utterly fantastical and I love reading about it. I love watching them learn to control their abilities, to making mistakes and learning from them to creating new friendships and reconnecting with old ones, to facing down the bad guys and triumphing in the end. The journeys that these characters go on are what brings me back time and time again to these comics and I loved reading about them.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again Rebekah Weatherspoon is one of my favourite romance writers and I devoured a number of her books in August and September. Sanctuary is Rebekah’s newest novel in her Beards and Bondage series and it’s now my favourite in the series. I loved the main characters of Liz and Silas, especially Liz. I could relate to Liz and how she handled the mess of a situation that had become her life. Seeing her character fight for herself, for what she deserved and desired was fantastic. And who could say no to a hunky, bearded farmer like Silas. The book had some very, very steamy love scenes that were just top-notch. The addition of the five gorgeous puppies was just an added but totally welcomed bonus. I loved booked and cannot wait for the third novel in the series.
Honourable Mentions:
- Remedial Rocket Science – Susannah Nix
- The Seventh Plague – James Rollins
- Sugar Baby series – Rebekah Weatherspoon
Those were all the books that I read in the past two months. I hope it inspires you to pick some of them up as well. Thanks for reading and see you in November…hopefully. 😘
A Work in Progress 