It’s June and there are 7 new books to choose, from Book of the Month! Welp, not a huge fan of this month’s offerings. Not because these picks are bad, but I’m seriously surprised that both Malibu Rising and The Maidens were main picks, while the two debut’s were add-ons. I originally signed up for Book of the Month a few years ago, to try and expand my reading, find new authors, and dip my toes into genres I normally avoided. So personally I think that those should have been flipped. The Maidens and Malibu Rising, were always going to be popular picks so having them as add-ons seems like a better fit to me. I know BOTM is a business and maybe it makes a ton of good business sense, but that’s not for me to decide.
Out of the seven picks this month, four of them were on my May Most Anticipated List. Which if you didn’t know, I do post an upcoming release article featuring my most anticipated new release, about halfway through each month. For example I posted my June Most Anticipated midway through May, and you can expect to see my July Most Anticipated in about a week and half.
All four of those same books where my in my June BOTM Predictions. I’d say I’m killing it on the prediction front, except I had not even heard of the other three books til Tuesday, so maybe I just got lucky.
With June being Pride month, I was happy to see that two of this month’s picks had LGBTQ themes. BOTM has also highlighted a ton of their available books with LGBTQ themes and there are actually 34 options available to add to your box this month. That’s a ton! My personal recommendations out of these picks would be:
We’re also reading The Knockout Queen as our Let’s Read Rant Repeat pick for June. Head to our instagram @letsreadrantrepeat and let us know if you’d like to join in.
Click HERE to check out what I was excited for in June.
Check out this Month’s picks below and see what I put in my box!
June Line Up
June Add-ons
My June Box
The Maidens, Malibu Rising, One Last Stop, and The Other Black Girl were all huge releases for me and I actually received Advanced Copies of all of them. While I haven’t read The Other Black Girl yet, I’ve only heard fabulous things about it.
Malibu Rising is fantastic and one of my favorite reads in May. Since my advance copy was a digital copy, I opted to add a copy to my box because this will be a new ‘go-to’ recommendation for me. Of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s newest releases, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is still my favorite, but Malibu Rising is right behind it in the rankings. Personally, while I enjoyed Daisy Jones and the Six, it wasn’t my favorite. So I think if you are more on the Evelyn train, than Malibu is for you!
Reviews: Malibu Rising | The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
One Last Stop, I received an advanced audio copy. I’m halfway through the audio so far and I’m absolutely loving this romance. It’s witty and any book that has a line that says our main character doesn’t trust people but she trusts fried chicken, is a winner for me. I wanted a physical copy of this one as well, as I think it’ll be a ‘Go-To’ recommendation for me. With a focus on LGBT, this is a perfect addition to you June box.
My last two picks were Half Sick of Shadows and Instructions for Dancing. I love reading romances in the summer. To me they are the perfect vacation read, that plus the fact I love Nicola Yoon’s writing made Instructions for Dancing an auto add for me. I’m also a HUGE fan of fantasy, I’m also very into Arthurian legend but I had no idea Elaine was primariy character in the legends. Apparently, Elaine gets locked in a tower in the original legends, but Laura Sebastian has taken her and molder her into a prophetess. Not sure how it’s going to turn out, but I’m very intrigured by the entire premise an of course this went into my box.
My last pick this month was actually a previous pick, Project Hail Mary. I actually thought I had put this in my box in May, was super disappointed when I realized I had not. So I rushed to grab my copy this month. Andy Weir’s The Martian is one of my favorite space odyssey, so I’m excited to see what’s in store from his newest release.
What I did not choose
I have heard next to nothing about Skype is Falling. Based on reading the few reviews I did see and just the overall description of the book I decided to skip it this month. I’m way to on the fence about it at the month to have picked it. I’m interested to see what others say about it though and I might give it a go then.
The Damage, I opted out of picking this month. I have a digital copy of The Damage already but has not had the motivation to read it yet. I partly think I’m a little burned out on family dramas currently, but I’ll be sure to link my review here, once I get around to reading it.
Let me just state that I was not a huge fan of The Silent Patient. I enjoyed it but it didn’t ‘Wow’ me. Regardless, I thought I’d give Michaelides a second chance but The Maidens did not deliver for me. I won’t say I hated it, but it was such a slow burn, and I say that as a Jane Harper lovers who is the queen of slow burn mysteries. It took way to long to get anywhere in the book and then once the action really took off, the book was over. While I did enjoyed all the Greek Mythology references, I found all the characters to be completely unlikable. There were also way to many red herrings and it might just be me, but I found Michaelides writing to be trying to hard. I didn’t add a copy to my box and I don’t really recommend adding this to your box.
Review: The Maidens
That’s what’s in my box this month! Did we pick any of the same books this month? Let me know in the comments below or over on my Instagram HERE.
Happy Reading!
WHAT IS BOOK OF THE MONTH?
For those who haven’t heard of Book of the Month club or BOTM, it is a subscription program, similar to audible or other box subscription services, where you get (you guessed it) a new book every month. Each month members are given 5 different books to choose from. BOTM generally focusing on debut and emerging writers, and is known for having helped launch the careers of some of the most acclaimed authors in American literary history. In an attempt to read more books outside my favorite genres without having to siphon through all the duds, I decided to sign up for the monthly subscriptions. It costs me $14.99 per month, I choose 1 of the 5 books on the first of every month, and it’s delivered straight to my door. You can skip any month or roll your credits over to the next month, at any time. Since I started getting BOTM in 2018, I’ve really enjoyed some of the new authors I’ve been exposed to. If you’re interested in joining BOTM, I’ve added my referral code to the bottom of this post, which if you use, you’ll be able to get a discount on your first month (book)!
Interested in joining Book of the Month?
Get your first book for $9.99 using code May5 when you sign up using my link!
Either click HERE or enter the url into your browser: https://book-of-the-month.ixmz.net/kvzez https://book-of-the-month.ixmz.net/c/1803400/761424/9782