July 2022 Wrap Up

July ended yesterday, and I usually like to do my wrap ups on the last day of the month. But this month we’re remodeling, and my life has been chaotic. It’s a great thing and I’m super excited, but it still really does mess up my routine. But better late than never so let’s get to my July 2022 Wrap Up.

Hide

Synopsis:

The challenge: Spend a week hiding in an abandoned amusement park and don’t get caught.

The prize: enough money to change everything.

Even though everyone is desperate to win–to seize a dream future or escape a haunting past–Mack is sure she can beat her competitors. All she has to do is hide, and she’s an expert at that.

It’s the reason she’s alive and her family isn’t.

But as the people around her begin disappearing one by one, Mack realizes that this competition is even more sinister than she imagined, and that together might be the only way to survive.

Fourteen competitors. Seven days. Everywhere to hide but nowhere to run.

Come out, come out, wherever you are.

My Rating: 2/5

My Full Review: https://wildwoodreads.com/2022/07/08/hide-review/

The Fall of the House of Usher

Synopsis:

During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in theautumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in theheavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through asingularly dreary tract of country, and at length found myself, asthe shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholyHouse of Usher. I know not how it was-but, with the first glimpseof the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. Isay insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that halfpleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mindusually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolateor terrible. I looked upon the scene before me-upon the merehouse, and the simple landscape features of the domain-upon thebleak walls-upon the vacant eye-like windows-upon a few ranksedges-and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees-with anutter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthlysensation more properly than to the after-dream of the revellerupon opium-the bitter lapse into every-day life-the hideousdropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickeningof the heart-an unredeemed dreariness of thought which nogoading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime.What was it-I paused to think-what was it that so unnerved mein the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery allinsoluble;

My Rating: 4/5

My Full Review: I know this is technically a short story, but I loved it enough to include in my wrap up. I had a fun time reading this. I wanted to familiarize myself with the story before I picked up What Moves the Dead.

The Wise Man’s Fear

Synopsis:

“There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.”

My name is Kvothe. You may have heard of me.

So begins a tale told from his own point of view–a story unequaled in fantasy literature. Now in The Wise Man’s Fear, Day Two of The Kingkiller Chronicle, Kvothe takes his first steps on the path of the hero and learns how difficult life can be when a man becomes a legend in his own time.

My Rating: 5/5

My Full Review: https://wildwoodreads.com/2022/07/20/the-wise-mans-fear-review/

The Slow Regard of Silent Things

Synopsis:

Deep below the University, there is a dark place. Few people know of it: a broken web of ancient passageways and abandoned rooms. A young woman lives there, tucked among the sprawling tunnels of the Underthing, snug in the heart of this forgotten place.

Her name is Auri, and she is full of mysteries.

The Slow Regard of Silent Things is a brief, bittersweet glimpse of Auri’s life, a small adventure all her own. At once joyous and haunting, this story offers a chance to see the world through Aurir’s eyes. And it gives the reader a chance to learn things that only Auri knows….

My Rating: 3/5

My Full Review: https://wildwoodreads.com/2022/07/25/the-slow-regard-of-silent-things/

The House Across the Lake

Synopsis:

Casey Fletcher, a recently widowed actress trying to escape a streak of bad press, has retreated to the peace and quiet of her family’s lake house in Vermont. Armed with a pair of binoculars and several bottles of bourbon, she passes the time watching Tom and Katherine Royce, the glamorous couple living in the house across the lake. They make for good viewing–a tech innovator, Tom is powerful; and a former model, Katherine is gorgeous.

One day on the lake, Casey saves Katherine from drowning, and the two strike up a budding friendship. But the more they get to know each other–and the longer Casey watches–it becomes clear that Katherine and Tom’s marriage isn’t as perfect as it appears. When Katherine suddenly vanishes, Casey immediately suspects Tom of foul play. What she doesn’t realize is that there’s more to the story than meets the eye–and that shocking secrets can lurk beneath the most placid of surfaces.

My Rating: 4/5

My Full Review: https://wildwoodreads.com/2022/07/27/the-house-across-the-lake-review/

So that’s my July 2022 wrap up. I read a variety of books this month, and the ratings are all over the board. I enjoyed most of what I read, but there were definitely a few duds. Did you find any new favorites in July?

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