Hello,

This one got out later than I intended again. Oops. I hope you guys are having a good week. I moved into my dorm on Sunday afternoon so I’ve mostly been chilling inside the last couple of days. I did have to go to target a couple of times since I forgot/lost a couple of items that I needed but other than that I have mostly been getting ready for my classes and updating on Goodreads since I haven’t updated in like two months.  I do have some mini-reviews/reviews and a couple of tags coming in from the summer that I wasn’t able to post as well. I’m also looking at starting my own YouTube channel though I still have to figure out editing and posting videos before I actually upload my first video. I’m camera shy and don’t particularly like watching myself talk but I am willing to conquer that fear. I’ll post my first video when I set everything up though.

I’ve also been at my grandparent’s house for the last day or so. I didn’t have any classes on Friday so i ended up going home after my last class on Thursday which I have to admit it was a little weird but I think I am going to enjoy having three day weekends every week. lol. I’m still working on setting up a schedule for blogging and filming so once i do i will set up a post with an update. I’m kind of looking at either Friday or Saturday but I haven’t figure out what the rest of my schedule will be like yet.

That is all that is going on around here so far so onward to the July wrap-up!

July was definitely the best month for reading that I have had in a long time, and probably wont get again until December. For the last few months I’ve been working my way through some Spell-it-out challenges and a couple of others on Goodreads and I think I have finally made a good bit of progress. i still have quite a ways to go but I am pretty comfortable with where I am at right now at least. I unfortunately have not been keeping up with my reading goal and am still a bit behind on books but everything else looks pretty good. I honestly haven’t really been paying attention to it this year as I am more concerned with finishing up some of the challenges that I have been working on for the last couple of years.

July Wrap-up: 

For this update since I read so many books I won’t post every single one. I’ll still go with two of my favorite/least favorite books and tow that surprised me. Also all of my link-ups come from Goodreads as well.

Number of books read in July: 19 

Total number of Pages: 7,198 

Number of books read toward reading goal: 60 

Genres: 

  • Fantasy: 7
  • Sci-fi: 6
  • Contemporary: 2
  • Magical realism/contemporary – 1
  • Mystery: 2
  • Horror: 1

Overall I finished 5 trilogies and 1 series. I also started four new series and continued with three other series. I also read four standalone novels.

July wrap-up part 1

July wrap-up part 2

My top favorite book for this month was Morning star (#3) by Pierce Brown. I ended up rating this 4.-4.5 stars. Even though this trilogy does get dark and a bit gory, there is plenty of action. I initially had the ebook but found that I struggled through that and ended up getting the physically copy and breezed right through it. I wanted to find out what happened to the characters and i am so glad that i decided to finally continue this series. I wan’t to eventually get Iron gold (#4) but it may be next year before I get to it.

My second favorite book was Daughter of the siren queen (#2) by Tricia Levenseller. I rated it 5 stars on Goodreads, though I do feel like the ending could have been a bit more than it was but overall, I really enjoyed the story and its one that I would highly recommend.

My least favorite novel was sadly We hunt the flame (#1) by Hafsah Faizal. I’ve heard a lot about this novel and at first I wasn’t going to try it, but then I saw it at my local library and I kind of picked it up on a whim. I think I would have enjoyed it more if it was less pages than it was. I liked the characters alright, but felt that the story dragged a little and I’m not entirely sure about the romance yet. I don’t know if I will read the second one when it comes out, but I might.

My other least favorite book was Jane, unlimited by Kristen Cashore and this one was definitely a DNF. I loved the Graceling trilogy by this author when I read it back in high school, but this book frustrated me. I only really got through the prologue and started to read the first story before I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t relate to any of the characters, and the story just felt all over the place. By the time that I got to the first story I was mostly just skimming it so that was when I decided to go ahead and stop reading it. Maybe it gets better throughout the story but this is one that I unfortunately won’t be picking up again anytime soon.

I think the book that surprised me the most this month was The enemy (#1) by Charlie Higson. I don’t read many books about zombies and honestly this is probably the first one that I have read this year and in a long while. This one was apparently one that I needed at the time because I’d been reading a lot of fantasy novels that I wasn’t really enjoying so this came as a nice surprise. I will definitely be picking up the second book at some point. This is one that I would definitely recommend if you are looking for a book about zombies.

 

Overall, July was a very good reading month. I start school again in August so I don’t know how much reading I will be able to do, but I am going to try and squeeze in some last minute reading.

Since I posted this so late, I won’t have an August TBR and instead will go straight into the wrap-up. I should be back on track this weekend though.