Weekly Wrap-Up 18 – 24 August: Creepy Reads

Hello readers!

This week was particularly creepy – on my reading list, that is. Real life was thankfully boring. I finished Things We Lost in the Fire, Fangs and Drive your Plow over the Bones of the Dead. I’ve already bullied my mom and my sister into reading Things We List in the Fire, which I think will make nobody sleep for a week and both of them never to take recommendations from me ever again. I also started Hamnet and Hysteria. All the books I finished were 4 stars, which speaks very well of my reading week!

In case you missed it, you should check out my list of Latinx Books to Read Instead of American Dirt from a couple weeks ago! Took me a while to compile a list, and I’ve got a few more in the making, as I slowly go though my list of to-be-read Latinx (especially Brazilian) literature. I do love coming up with very specific lists – next I want to write a list of Latin American recommendations for Women in Translation month. Unfortunately that won’t be done in time for this year’s WIT month so it will be quietly sitting on my drafts for almost a year as I slowly add more books to it.

Do you guys also write posts SUPER in advance? I confess I’m lowkey obsessed with doing that. I start my “Best books of the year” list on January every year, and write a little bit on it every time I read something great.

I forgot to list in other Wrap Ups, but I received the following books from Netgalley in the past couple weeks:

Weekly Wrap Up

Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enriquez / 4 stars

This was an incredible, intense and brutal collection of stories. Mariana Enriquez did a fantastic job of bringing the supernatural, the weird, and darker twists into awful daily situations (bad marriages, husbands hurting wives, negligent social workers etc). It’s impossible to look away. An incredible horror read!

Drive your Plow over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk / 4 stars

This was beautifully atmospheric and just weird enough to keep me guessing. It’s the story of a woman in a small village in Poland who becomes an important witness in the deaths of some locals, who she claims were killed by animals as a revenge plot. I really enjoyed this, the writing is so wonderful and it’s a slow-paced mystery that makes you wonder yourself whether the main character is going insane. A perfect, perfect winter read.

Hysteria by Jessica Gross / Ongoing

This is giving me strong The Pisces vibes and I’m here for it. It’s the story of a young woman who starts dating a guy she’s convinced is Freud. I’m early in the book but it’s already intense and so interesting!

Fangs by Sarah Andersen / 4 stars

I loved this! So cute – it’s the love story between a werewolf and a vampire. Their dynamic is adorable and it made me smile.

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell / Ongoing

This is the last book for the Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist, and one of three that I think has a chance of winning (although my bets are on another book!). I’ve only read a few pages so far but it’s really well-written and I am curious to see where the story goes!

What did you read this week?