June 2026 Reading Wrap-Up

Helloooo, and welcome to my June 2026 reading wrap-up! I read 15 books in June, not counting books that I started and didn’t finish (looking at you, Strange Pictures) or continued with no end in sight (been picking away at La Planète des singes FOREVER). I read from the whole gamut of genres and assigned every star rating from 1 to 5. So let’s start talking about them!

PLEASE NOTE: The title of each book links to its corresponding Goodreads page in case you want more information. Beside each title are affiliate links to each book on Bookshop.org (a great resource for Americans and Brits who would like to order books online but still support their local independent bookstores) and also on Booksellers.ca (the Canadian version of the same concept). I’ll receive a small commission from any purchase you make through the affiliate links, which I will put towards paying the blog bills.

My biggest disappointment of the year

The House of Fortune by Jessie Burton ( buy on Bookshop.org | buy on Booksellers.ca )

⭐

This book annoyed me. I loved The Miniaturist. It didn’t need a sequel, but I was still optimistic about this one, because I love Jessie Burton’s writing in general. But this was relentlessly boring, repetitive, and pointless. It might have made a decent novella set in the Miniaturist world if it had been significantly trimmed down, but it didn’t do enough to advance the story or progress the characters to earn its status as a sequel. I was determined not to DNF it because I own the hardcover, but finishing it was a struggle, and I want those reading hours back.

Another let-down

Dark Is When the Devil Comes by Daisy Pearce ( buy on Bookshop.org | buy on Booksellers.ca )

⭐⭐

I was really excited for this book, and there were times when it delivered the creepy vibes I’d been anticipating. But the pace dragged through most of it, some of the dialogue (especially when teenage characters were involved) felt insincere, and I was never entirely sure what was going on. Having now finished it, I’m still not entirely sure what was going on. I’m afraid this one wasn’t for me.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for the ARC, though.

These were okay, but didn’t quite live up to the hype

Marion by Leah Rowan ( buy on Bookshop.org | buy on Booksellers.ca )

⭐⭐⭐

I really struggled with this one. I’m giving it 3 stars, because if it hadn’t been considered a Psycho retelling, it might have been a half-decent thriller. But I think I need to stop reading these “feminist rage” books. I just don’t believe that every single man is evil and every single woman who does something wrong is just righteously angry. Psycho is one of my favourite horror novels, and the movie is an absolute classic. It didn’t need to be “fixed” to exonerate the female characters and excoriate the males. (Potentially slight spoilers: Sometimes women do steal for selfish reasons, and sometimes mothers do abuse their sons.)

Also, turning the most iconic shower scene in cinematic history into a laundry list of body parts was… a choice.

I’d better stop now or I’ll rethink those 3 stars.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for the ARC.

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch ( buy on Bookshop.org | buy on Booksellers.ca )

⭐⭐⭐

I was so excited for this one, but it fell a little bit flat for me. For one thing, the Schrodinger’s Cat thought experiment is a huge pet peeve of mine (pun not intended). For another thing, I felt like the characters took too long to figure out what was happening and kept making weird choices. And the female characters were a little too male-fantasy for my taste. I enjoyed the general story for the scifi of it all, but I was a bit disappointed in the execution.

Thankfully, my reading month got better

Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker ( buy on Bookshop.org | buy on Booksellers.ca )

⭐⭐⭐⭐

I struggled a lot at first to understand or care about what was going on, and it seemed to drag quite a bit through the first half. But once I was hooked, I was hooked. Not entirely sure I could explain what happened, though.

This Is Me: A Reckoning by Hayden Panettiere ( buy on Bookshop.org | buy on Booksellers.ca )

⭐⭐⭐⭐

I’ve liked Hayden Panettiere as an actress since she was a kid, and I know she’s been through a lot in recent years, so I decided to pick this up. Not the most engaging or inspiring memoir I’ve read this year, but definitely an interesting read for her fans, for post-partum depression sufferers, and maybe for anyone who is curious about the lives of child stars.

Glass Town: The Imaginary World of the Brontes by Isabel Greenberg ( couldn’t find it on Bookshop.org | buy on Booksellers.ca )

⭐⭐⭐⭐

I’ve never read the Bronte sisters’ juvenilia, but I picked this graphic novel up anyway. I really enjoyed it. Didn’t love the illustration style, but I related a lot to the frame narrative of Charlotte getting too lost in her imaginary world and deciding to end it. I need to read the actual Glass Town stories and then revisit this.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans ( buy on Bookshop.org | buy on Booksellers.ca )

⭐⭐⭐⭐

This one is all the rage right now, and I can understand why. It wasn’t entirely my kind of read, but I enjoyed it.

The Pastures of Heaven by John Steinbeck ( buy on Bookshop.org | couldn’t find it on Booksellers.ca )

⭐⭐⭐⭐

This was the second read for my Steinbeck project. I’ll be posting about it more in-depth soon, but for now I’ll say that it’s a collection of interconnected stories about the families living in a possibly-cursed small town. I really enjoyed it.

LOONEY! by Gavin Dillinger & Stephen Kozeniewski ( not available on Bookshop.org | not available on Booksellers.ca )

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Really enjoyed this weird horror about cartoon characters coming to life with murderous intentions. I reviewed it here on my blog.

An almost-5-star

Snap by Susin Nielsen ( buy on Bookshop.org | buy on Booksellers.ca )

⭐⭐⭐⭐.5

Another one I’ve already spoken about here on my blog, as a finalist for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. I really enjoyed it, but I didn’t talk in my previous post about my reason for the half-star. I did, however, rant about it in my Goodreads review, so I’ll copy/paste that paragraph here:

The only thing I didn’t like was the single-shaming. One of the characters is in the middle of a traumatic divorce, and all the other characters are constantly on her case to start dating, even making fun of her for *gasp* not having had sex for 8 whole months!! Seriously? This is the age of unapologetic female singlehood! Embrace your freedom, Frances! I almost docked the book a star for that, but decided on 4.5 stars rounded up. It’s a great book otherwise. (But please don’t single-shame your friends, people. Women do not need male validation to have worth. And you really should work on becoming the best version of yourself before you try to have a relationship, or you’ll just be piling your baggage on someone else’s shoulders. /soapbox)

A couple of surprise 5-stars

Babylon, South Dakota by Tom Lin ( buy on Bookshop.org | buy on Booksellers.ca )

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Magical realism done right. I could live in Tom Lin’s beautiful prose forever. Maybe there’s a world out there where I do.

Marilyn and Her Books: The Literary Life of Marilyn Monroe by Gail Crowther ( buy on Bookshop.org | buy on Booksellers.ca )

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I posted about this here on my blog. Really really enjoyed this examination of Marilyn Monroe’s love for literature.

Absolute favourites of the month

Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World by Mark Waddell ( buy on Bookshop.org | buy on Booksellers.ca )

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I talked about this one in my post about the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour finalists. For such an at-times graphic horror novel, it’s surprisingly funny and delightful.

The Caretaker by Marcus Kliewer ( buy on Bookshop.org | buy on Booksellers.ca )

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

My second Marcus Kliewer of the year, and again, it was AWESOME, I LOVED it. Couldn’t put it down once the momentum picked up. Not so much scary as absorbingly atmospheric, you know? I jumped at every sound in my house for hours. 🤣