I loved doing my reading experiment for July, but for August it's back to simpler times of using the wheel! Here is a guide to my TBR prompt if you need it.
Spin 1
Prompt: Latest Purchase
The most recent addition to my bookshelves is the infamous thriller that everyone seems to have read apart from me: Blood Orange by Harriet Tyce. I am reading this as a book club pick towards the end of the month and am hopeful it won't disappoint in the same way as many other thrillers I've read this year. Overview: Alison looks to have a perfect life. She is given her first big murder trial to defend, but Alison has her own secrets. Drinking too much, neglecting her family and having an affair with a colleague has lead to someone knowing all her secrets, and will stop at nothing until she has lost everything.
Prediction: 3.5 stars
Spin 2
Prompt: Waterstones Giftcard
I'm very selective about my purchases from Waterstones, but there is something special about The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré. I have been hearing nothing but fantastic things about this book and it has been on my radar since before it's release!
Overview: Adunni is a fourteen-year-old Nigerian girl who knows what she wants: an education. But instead of granting this, Adunni's father sells her to be the third wife of a local man who is eager for her to bear him a son and heir. When Adunni runs away to the city, hoping to make a better life, she finds that the only other option before her is servitude to a wealthy family. As a yielding daughter, a subservient wife, and a powerless slave, Adunni is told, by words and deeds, that she is nothing. She finds the way to share her story and speak out, in any way she can.
Prediction: 5 stars
Spin 3:
Prompt: Non-Fiction
I have been spending a lot of time thinking about the Black Lives Matter movement over the past few months. However, it has not been at the forefront of my mind lately as I haven't attended a protest in almost a month. For this reason I want to read When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors.
Overview: A poetic and powerful memoir about what it means to be a Black woman in America—and the co-founding of a movement that demands justice for all in the land of the free.
Prediction: 4.5 stars
Spin 4
Prompt: Set outside of the UK/USA
I have completely cheated for this prompt but I am desperate to read this book so am bending the rules a little. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is initially set in Nigeria before moving to America! Overview: Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to grapple with what it means to be black for the first time. Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but with post-9/11 America closed to him, he instead plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Fifteen years later, they reunite in a newly democratic Nigeria, and reignite their passion—for each other and for their homeland.
Prediction: 5 stars
Spin 5
Prompt: LGBTQ+
I didn't have much to choose from for this category, however I received All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson for my birthday in July, and have heard so many fantastic things about this new release.
Overview: In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson explores his childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia. From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with his loving grandmother, to his first sexual relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys.
Predication: 4.5 stars
Spin 6
Prompt: Buddy read
Myself and a couple of new friends from Instagram decided we wanted to read a book together in August. I was lucky that this prompt came up so I could read White Teeth by Zadie Smith. I have seen this novel on the shelves of everyone I know for years and years! I am excited to finally read it.
Overview: One of the most talked about fictional debuts ever, White Teeth is adored by critics and readers alike. Dealing - among many other things - with friendship, love, war, three cultures and three families over three generations, one brown mouse, and the tricky way the past has of coming back and biting you on the ankle, it is a life-affirming, riotous must-read of a book.
Prediction: 4 stars
Spin 7
Prompt: A-Z
I used a random number generator and I got 'B', so from looking at my shelves, I spotted The Hearts Invisible Furies by John Boyne and I am delighted. I have heard this book has a wonderful ability to be incredible sad, whilst also being humorous and lighthearted. It sounds right up my street! Overview: Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamorous and dangerous Julian Woodbead. At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from – and over his three score years and ten, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country and much more.
Prediction: 5 stars
Spin 8
Prompt: Random unowned TBR
I used a random number generator for all the books I want to read, but don't own; always happy to treat myself to a new book! I ended up landing on Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham. This is a topic I know absolutely nothing about, and I heard this brilliant work of non-fiction will tell the story in the best way possible.
Overview: Chernobyl has become lodged in the collective nightmares of the world: shorthand for the spectral horrors of radiation poisoning, for a dangerous technology slipping its leash, for ecological fragility, and for what can happen when a dishonest and careless state endangers not only its own citizens, but all of humanity. It is a story that has long remained in dispute, clouded from the beginning in secrecy, propaganda, and misinformation.
Prediction: 4 stars
And there you have it! Many of the books I am reading this month, I have predicted very highly, so I am hopeful this is going to be a fantastic selection of books and I might be able to find a new favourite or two!
Happy reading this month! :) https://bookfever11.com/