[WEEKEND READS] where I'm slowly getting my reading mood back

Hi,

Apologies if I still haven't replied to comments or visited your blog. I plan to do that (hopefully tomorrow). As I'm writing this, it's already 10PM and I kind of need to sleep soon so I can wake up early to watch the Yankee's ALDS Game 2 tomorrow morning for me. Game 1 was suuuuuper good (and exciting!).

ANYWAY, I joined #burtontober hosted by @LostAndBoundBks over at Twitter. I did this because I want to pick myself out of this horrible slump I've been going on which I'm sure you're all tired of (lol). Out of the 9 challenges, I picked 6 books for them. I hope to have a wrap up about this at the end of the month (which is the end of this reading challenge/read-a-thon)

AUGUST-SEPTEMBER WRAPUP (aka the month of picking up and dropping down books)

#MIBF2019 book haul

Hi,

The slump continues to plague me and I hate it. My mood and my energy just aren't there.

I have like 3 or 4 books in my side bed. I alternate bringing books to work depending on my mood for the day. I hate it because I want to stick to one book so that I can finish something. I also hate that I am NEVER in the mood for an ebook lately. I started a few of the ebooks I downloaded a couple of years ago but end up never really going further than the first chapter or two.

I dropped books because I also don't want to dwell so much on them. I want to live by the idea of read books I enjoy and drop books that aren't working out for me. This doesn't mean I'll leave these books unread on my shelf. I want to get back to them at some point.

books read

Catching Fire (the Hunger Games #2) by Suzanne Collins | Wilder Girls by Rory Powers | My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite | Nichijou, vol. 5 by Keiichi Arawi

[REVIEW] Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore

title: Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore
author: Matthew J. Sullivan
genre: adult fiction, mystery
published: January 9, 2018 by Scribner (first published June 13, 2017)
format: trade paperback, 352 pages
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository | Fully Booked
rating: 5 / 5 stars
goodreads

When a bookshop patron commits suicide, his favorite store clerk must unravel the puzzle he left behind in this “intriguingly dark, twisty” (Kirkus Reviews) debut novel from an award-winning short story writer. 

Lydia Smith lives her life hiding in plain sight. A clerk at the Bright Ideas bookstore, she keeps a meticulously crafted existence among her beloved books, eccentric colleagues, and the BookFrogs—the lost and lonely regulars who spend every day marauding the store’s overwhelmed shelves. 

But when Joey Molina, a young, beguiling BookFrog, kills himself in the bookstore’s upper room, Lydia’s life comes unglued. Always Joey’s favorite bookseller, Lydia has been bequeathed his meager worldly possessions. Trinkets and books; the detritus of a lonely, uncared for man. But when Lydia flips through his books she finds them defaced in ways both disturbing and inexplicable. They reveal the psyche of a young man on the verge of an emotional reckoning. And they seem to contain a hidden message. What did Joey know? And what does it have to do with Lydia? 

As Lydia untangles the mystery of Joey’s suicide, she unearths a long buried memory from her own violent childhood. Details from that one bloody night begin to circle back. Her distant father returns to the fold, along with an obsessive local cop, and the Hammerman, a murderer who came into Lydia’s life long ago and, as she soon discovers, never completely left. 

mystery and books. what a perfect combination!

I love 'books about books' - books that involves bookstores, book readers, and being around books in general. It's an easy sell for me. And I bought this one because of that. I didn't read the synopsis, just that  title - the 'Bookstore' in the title and I'm sold.