July Wrap Up: The Month of the Reading Slump

Hi all!

July went by with a blink of an eye and I caught that horrid reading slump! The days just flew by and I thought I was reading much more than I actually did, until I looked properly at my Goodreads challenge. I have so many ARCs just piling up, and I’m hoping I’ll be able to read more in August.

BOOKS READ

= 6 books (1 reread), 3 novellas, 1 comic

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BOOKS REVIEWED

Unfit to Print by KJ Charles was a lovely novella by one of my favourite m/m writers. The novella follows a young British black bookseller whose half-brother died and he is tasked with getting rid of his pornographic book collection. Along the way, he meets up with an ex-friend of his, and they have old history between them.

★★★★.5

Read my review

In Other Lands is my favourite YA standalone book ever. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve probably seen me raving about this novel since I first read it and I won’t ever stop. It’s hilarious, sweet, poignant and important — especially with it’s representation of bisexuality. I adore this novel and I hope you will too!

★★★★★

Read my review

 

Sadie will be published September 14 and it’s a book I highly encourage you to support (if you can handle the themes and topics). Courtney Summers’ YA novel is an incredible examination of the insidiousness of rape culture: how women — young girls and teenagers — are treated in our society, mainly by older men. I adore this book but, holy crap, it hurts to read.

★★★★★

Read my review

Fingersmith is a classic lesbian historical novel by the queen of queer fiction, Sarah Waters. This book is long and slow, but the plot is incredible and the plot twists will kill you! I highly recommend.

★★★★

Read my review

 

 

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BOOK of the Month

This novel killed me. I am deceased. It follows Oliver, a classically trained actor during his final year of university. He has a small, close-knit group of friends: Richard, the star of every show; Meredith, Richard’s girlfriend and the ‘femme fatale’; James, Oliver’s best friend; Filippa, who hides herself from the group; Wren, Richard’s sweet cousin; and Alexander, the sort-of screw up. In their final year, their relationship begins to change, as rivalries, once light-hearted, turn deadly. And then, ten years later, Oliver is released from prison for the murder of one of his friends, and the book tracks how that came to happen.

I seriously adore this book, especially the tense romance that develops between Oliver and one of his friends. The plot is amazing: there’s not one moment where I wasn’t perched on the edge of my seat, wondering what would happen next.

I highly recommend you read this book as soon as you can!

Monthly Disappointment 

I wasn’t really into The Ocean at the End of the Lane. It’s a very strange novel, that’s quite hard to get into or understand what is happening. It’s magical realism, which, admittedly, I’m not the biggest fan of because it’s so hard to follow along. And that’s definitely the case with this novel. I did really enjoy the MC, especially as a lot of the book was him as a child and he was quite cute, but ultimately that wasn’t enough to save the book for me. Neil Gaiman’s writing was beautiful, but the plot was long and slow (crappy in a 250-page book) and boring.

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IF YOU LIKE THAT, TRY THESE … posts

My If you like that, try these … posts this month were (click on the titles to see the posts):

IMPORTANT Notification for THIS SERIES:

‘If you like that, try these …’ will no longer be a weekly series! Instead, it will be bi-monthly. Sorry to all the people who are really enjoying these posts! I underestimated how much work each post is, and I don’t have as much time as I did when I started this series to work on them properly. It usually ends up with me scrambling on Wednesday night to write something up quickly.

So, yeah. If you like that, try these … will be coming out twice a month now! Thanks for understanding 💕.

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BOOK TAGS

I recently started a new book tag series, The ABC book challenge! This is a weekly tag where bloggers share memorable titles starting with a letter of the alphabet, as well as books on their TBR also starting with that letter.

Check out my posts so far: A and B.

A post of this series will come out every Tuesday!

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Extra Content

I wrote two massive posts this month which I’m really proud of! Please do check them out, I worked hard on them 💕. (Click on the images to see the posts.)

The first post is a list of my favourite podcast recommendations. If you’ve ever wanted to get into podcasts but didn’t know where to begin, well here’s your chance!

This next post is a collection of blogging advice I’ve accumulated after two years of blogging. If you’re a new blogger or an old one, hopefully everyone can find some helpful advice here:

I also shared my Marvel-A-Thon reading challenge wrap up! I managed to read 7 books out of my 21 book TBR, which wasn’t the best, but I’m still pretty happy!

I also took a look at how well I’m doing with my 2018 reading challenges in a six-month check-in post. I’m doing really well in my Netgalley challenge, but not the best with my Finish the Series challenge.

My lovely friend Rae @ Bookmark Chronicles has a new blogging series called Summer Spotlight. Rae interviews a different blogger and chats about a whole bunch of awesome, interesting topics. This month, she interviewed me! And it was awesome! Please check out our interview here!

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Blog tours

I was involved in two blog tours this month! A cover reveal for Anyta Sunday’s new Signs of Love book, Pisces Hooks Taurus and a release blitz for Anyta Sunday’s new, secret series Love Letters! (Click on the images to see the posts!)

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ARCS I RECEIVED

I’m SOOOOOOOO excited to read Muse of Nightmares, the highly anticipated sequel to Strange the Dreamer. And I was very lucky to receive a physical arc of The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy, the highly anticipated sequel to The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue. I’ve read The Lady’s Guide, and it’s incredible! Review to come in August.

Books purchased

I’M SO FREAKING EXCITED FOR RAVENSONG!! I’m going to be buddy reading this book with blogging friends, too!!

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NON-BOOKISH STUFF

I didn’t actually watch any shows this month :/. I was too consumed with reading books and blogging. Instead, I became OBSESSED with Shane Dawon’s YouTube videos. Seriously, I’ve nose-dived into his videos and I recommend that you do too. Here’s a few of my favourites: the TanaCon disaster (3-part series), the Graveyard Girl videos/helping a YouTuber fix her account (7-part series), Haunted Hotel videos (3-part series), Haunted Ghost ship videos (3-part series), all of his conspiracy videos and scary videos (massive playlist).

IN OTHER NEWS…

My sister and I are planning on going to America for two weeks in November! WOOOOOOO!!!! We’re going to spend Thanksgiving in New York, then go to Washington DC and then end in Boston (with a day trip to Salem!). I’m so excited, I’ve never been to America before. And this was such a spur of the moment trip, too. My sister and I had been talking about how we haven’t been overseas in years and, because we’re both graduating in December, thought we should go away one more time before we get full-time jobs. And voila: AMERICA!

If any American friends have recommendations for nice restaurants or awesome places to visit, please let me know!

HOW WAS YOUR JULY? DID YOU READ ANY GREAT BOOKS? Are you planning a holiday too? WATCH ANY AWESOME SHOWS OR MOVIES? WRITE ANY GREAT POSTS? LET ME KNOW!