June and July novels: Alia Tero and Rosie's Travelling Tea Shop

I just noticed a didn't post about a fiction read in June. Last month I re-read a favorite sci-fi dystopian novel called Alia Tero. The reason I re-read it was because I had heard that the authors had re-written/edited it and I wanted to see what changed. However, I think in my version, nothing changed. That's a problem I have with Kindle books. The changes don't always get pushed to your device. I even checked the list of books that had changes ready, and Alia Tero wasn't on the list. One time I complained to Amazon about this and they said that they don't usually bother when the book is cheap or free. I do think I got Alia Tero for free so maybe I'm not allowed to see changes. And they don't even let you delete the book and then buy it again to see the changes. Then again the page count on Amazon seemed to be the same as the page count in my book. But even that is hard because let's face it, it's an e-book, it doesn't have pages.

At any rate, if you like dystopian novels, I recommend this one. It doesn't have any violence. In this version of earth, it's sort of a socialist society where everyone pitches in to do most everything (except for advanced careers like doctors). One lives life in 4-month rotations, always changing homes and jobs every 4 months. The book follows one character as he goes through several rotations and learns that maybe there could be a different type of life. As you might imagine, some characters are grumbling about the rotations and how they want to rebel and just stay put and have a family. My one complaint about this book is that this part of the storyline is never fleshed out. The rebellion could be a huge part of the story, or maybe that will be a sequel.

This month I realized around July 25 that I hadn't read a novel yet. I'm kind of bored of my monthly free Kindle selections, and in fact this month I didn't even download one because they all looked so bad. So a couple days ago I just searched for Kindle bargains to see what looked good that day. For $2.99 I got a British chick lit (is there any U.S.-based chick lit???) book called Rosie's Travelling Tea Shop.

It was the usual British chick lit but I was happy because in this version, when the main character gets dumped by her cheating husband and she didn't see it coming and then she gets really drunk and does something stupid, well, in this version Rosie buys a camper van and decides to live in it on the road. So I learned about van life, in Europe anyway, and that part was interesting to me.

I might have to read that Bernadette book next month just because at least I know it takes place in Seattle.