Allena's Recent Reads and Book Challenge Update - June Results

Plugging along on my Book Challenge and having so much fun! {And what's so funny is I spent forever getting my books to fit in the collage and just now realized I forgot 1 of the books I read in June, ha!}

In June, I got 85 points and now have a total of 115 points:

Son by Lois Lowry (Read a book that is part of a series with at least four books in it - 25 points!) - I enjoyed this entire dystopian YA series {starting with The Giver}, but it's definitely on the Y side of YA. I feel like all of them could have been longer with more details, character development, backstory...but it was a fun read, and this book kind of wrapped everything up together from the previous books.

Landline by Rainbow Rowell (Read a book that won a Goodreads 'Best Book' award in 2014 - 10 points!) - If you got a second chance at love, would you make the same call? This was my first read by Rainbow, and it was a fun fluff of a read about a magic telephone {sounds like fluff, huh?}. I want to read more of her books, I wouldn't say she'll be the top of my list, but I do want to read more.

The Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll (Read a book you've never heard of - 10 points!) - A friend of mine {whose online library membership I borrow from time-to-time} checked this book out, and I decided to read it. It had a tagline that it was in the vein of Gone Girl. I was intrigued as I read this book, but it definitely wasn't quite as captivating as Gone Girl was, and I REALLY disliked the main character for the majority of the book. She was a really damaged, flawed character, but I was interested enough in her story {while vehemently not liking her} to want to see how it resolved itself, but I did feel like the ending was a bit of a letdown.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline - This book was set in the future where the majority of the world 'lives' inside a virtual world and the real world has pretty much fallen apart. The creator of the virtual world, called OASIS, has died and created a virtual challenge where the winner will obtain his entire fortune. Totally not my normal read but SO good! It felt a little YA, but overall, I'm VERY glad I branched out and read this one!

The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty (Read a book by an author you have read before - 15 points!) - Liane Moriarty is quickly becoming a favorite chick lit author of mine. This my second book of hers to read, and I LOVED it. The secret in this book did NOT disappoint {compared to The Luckiest Girl Alive}, and I couldn't figure out how in the world the story would be resolved, and Liane really did an amazing job of pulling it all together. It's been out forever, so I'm sure everyone in the world has read it, but I really loved it!

The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley (Read a book that is longer than 500 pages - 25 points!) - My sister told me to read this, and it was great. She and I often don't agree on books {I am much more into chick lit, YA, happy books, ha}, but this was worth the 500+ pages. There are essentially 2 stories being told - one in the present by a writer who is researching the first attempted Jacobite rising in the early 1700s in Scotland {after Outlander, you might have guessed that this would be enough to get me into a book} and the second story is one of her ancestor's story during said uprising. I quickly loved all the characters and was very invested in their stories {and love stories}!

So that's what I read in June. I'm already well into my books for July.  What have you been reading lately?