Mini Book Reviews: July 2026

I received ARCs of The Shampoo Effect, The Parisian Heist, Contraposto, Make Nice, and When Lemons Give You Life from NetGalley and their publishers in exchange for my honest reviews. This post contains affiliate links. 

I won't sugarcoat it--this wasn't my best month of reading. While all the books I read were good, only Contrapossto was memorable. Sure, The Shampoo Effect was entertaining, but my reading felt uninspired and, dare I say...a slog? My complaint about most books right now is that they are too darn long, and not because they need to be. It's a trend that needs to come to an end. I said what I said. 

And speaking of Contrapossto, this epic coming-of-age story deserves more hype. Wow!

Another Whirlwind of a Week

After a really fun and busy 10 days away, I returned home Sunday night. I did my best to jump back into my routine, but as I write this, I'm feeling grateful for a rainy Saturday to put my feet up and recover. Our weather has certainly been strange this year! This summer has been abnormally warm, wet, stormy, and at times tornadic. On Monday, we had severe storms with more tornadoes in the area. I was home with Cocoa, and we watched the storms roll in around lunchtime. They blew up quickly, and there was no indication of how severe they would become. My area was spared the brunt of the storms--not everyone was so lucky. 

I'm ready for fall...