I didn't spend time editing this before posting. 'Cause I'm tired.

I only managed two books in the month of June. July was only a teensy bit better with 3 books—or 4 if I wanted to get cute, because Maus is broken up into two books. And boy howdy, I'm making up for it now! With the end of October quickly approaching, I'm working up a sweat trying to complete my last nine books.

June

Category: A book based on a true story
Outrun the Moon, Stacey Lee
Goodreads review: 5 stars

This book was published in early 2016. In fact, I originally had it in the category "A book published this year." But then I had to move it, and I guess technically, it probably doesn't really fit in "a book based on a true story," but it sort of does. It's historical fiction, my fave. It's about a girl named Mercy Wong living in Chinatown in San Francisco, 1906. Her family is living in poverty, but she has a plan to solve that. She's a girl all about business, and she manages to finagle her way in to a ritzy all-girl school on the other side of town, in San Francisco's wealthiest area, by striking a business deal with the dean of the school. To save the school from embarrassment (over having a Chinese girl as a student) the dean tells the other students and their families that Mercy is a Chinese-royal-heir-foreign-exchange student. Despite her new royal status, a lot of the girls still refuse to accept her, and some of them are cruel to her. This is the part of the story that is not based on a true story, because the author even admits that in 1906, it was completely unlikely that a Chinese girl would be accepted into a wealthy all-girls school—business deal or not. Then, early one April morning, the famous 1906 San Francisco earthquake strikes. From then on, the girls are forced to ignore their social statuses and come together to help each other. Most of the girls don't know where their families are. Mercy tries to rush to Chinatown to save her family from the fires. I enjoyed this book immensely and I loved the writing style. The book does have some teen drama, but it's not so much that it becomes obnoxious. The story made me feel the need to go hug my babies, and everyone I care about. I recommend it.

Category: A book of short stories
Stars Above, Marissa Meyer
Goodreads review: 5 stars

Let's be honest. This book is 100% for Lunar Chronicles fans, and really, we could all use a little more of that series in our lives. If you've never read the books in the Lunar Chronicles series, prepare yourself for a description that sounds OH SO STUPID and I always feel oh so embarrassed when I try to explain it, but I promise it's a lot better than the book jacket describes. Also, most of the people I've recommended it to have also liked it. So there. So Cinder, the first book, is like a dystopian twist on the classic Cinderella. It's got cyborgs, a plague, and a prince charming all rolled up into one. Scarlet, the second book, is a dystopian twist on Little Red Riding Hood. It incorporates new main characters that build upon the characters from Cinder. Cress, the third book, and my favorite, is a twist on Rapunzel, and Winter—the fourth book—a twist on Snow White. By the end there are 8 main characters all with their individual stories that are intertwined with the main plot. They don't follow the fairy tales exactly, so you don't need to get all caught up on that. Anyway, the characters are great, it's a cool story line, and it's fun. I read them all the time—when I'm not bogged down with a 50-book reading challenge. So anyway. Now that that's out of the way. Stars Above includes more stories to fill in some of the gaps about the characters. I enjoyed the one about Thorne, of course, because he is the best. And then I enjoyed the retelling of the opening scene in Cinder from Prince Kai's point of view. And then I enjoyed the last one, for obvious reasons. I couldn't have cared less about The Little Android, which is one of the short stories that was getting a lot of hype. It didn't have any of the Lunar Chronicles characters in it except for a short conversation with Cinder, so why would I care about it?

July

Category: A book more than 100 years old
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
Goodreads review: 3 stars

I read this book back when I was 16, or some young impressionable age. In recent years, I couldn't remember a single thing about it, but I remembered that I had loved it as a teenager. So for that reason I've always just held on to the idea that Wuthering Heights was one of my favorite books. Does anyone else do that? You loved something as a kid and then 15 years later you remain blindingly loyal to it? Well anyway, I felt like it was high-time I re-read it, and GOOD GRIEF. This book is insane! This book isn't a romance! These people are nuts! Did I even understand what I was reading when I was 16? It's not likely. And this is another one of those classics where the story is told by someone not pertinent to to the story—like I was ranting about in a few posts back. Shoot—I want to hear the story from Heathcliff's point of view. That guy is the Sociopath Next Door. Anyway, of course it's worth reading, but I certainly have let go of my childhood ideals that this is one of my favorites. Puh-lease.

Category: A graphic novel
Maus I & II, Art Spiegelman
Goodreads review: 5 stars

This was my first graphic novel(s) that I've read. It comes in two books, part I and part II. If there ever was a graphic novel that you should read, this would be it. Art Spiegelman shares his father Vladek's story of surviving the Holocaust inside a Jewish ghetto and later at a Nazi death camp. His mother also survived the Holocaust, but she later committed suicide, and the book addresses that as well. In the graphic novel, the Jewish people are drawn as mice, and the Germans are as cats. There are other animals too, each portraying a certain group of people. It is an extremely sobering and difficult book to read. I enjoyed the breaks it took from the Holocaust story to give a glimpse into Vladek's life while Art is interviewing him for the story. Vladek is much older, he's stingy, obnoxious, and so endearing. It's obvious through the dialogue, that no matter how exasperating Vladek is about his money and what not, Art really cares for him. I recommend this book wholeheartedly.

Category: A book with bad reviews
Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, Roald Dahl
Goodreads review: 2 stars

Okay. Of all the far-fetched category synchronizations or stretches I've come up with to fit books somewhere, this is the worst. Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator does not have bad reviews. But! It is one of Dahl's lower-rated children's books, plus, I gave it a bad review—so that should count for something. This is one of many Roald Dahl books that I've read with my girls this year, and this along with James and the Giant Peach are the only ones that I could find a home for in my list of never-ending categories. We read The BFG, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory along with Great Glass Elevator and Peach. So that means by the time I'm done with this blasted reading challenge, I'll have read MORE than 50 books this year. Anyway, I enjoyed all of the others, but Glass Elevator didn't have the magic. The plot was all over the place. First they're in space. Then they're being chased by Vernicious Knids. Then the grandparents are turning into babies. And the grandparents! They were the wooooooorst! I was bored and annoyed. It has some funny and clever parts, but it doesn't hold up to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. THAT book is the best.