July Wrap Up and August TBR

July was a pretty good month for me. I had holidays for the first half of the month so I got a reasonable amount of reading and writing done.

Unfortunately I always wish I could have done a bit more, and especially in terms of school work I didn’t do as much as I probably should have. But overall a good month.

All covers link to goodreads.

Books I Planned to Read

            

Books I Actually Read

I managed to read so many books this month!! I’m so happy with myself.

 

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

This book kept me engaged the whole time, I read this very quickly. I was so thankful to be back reading YA books rather than school ones. I found the world building really interesting, it wasn’t super developed but there were several components that were unique to other books I’d read. I found the magic system really interesting and cool. Plus the writing was really interesting to read and flowed really smoothly.

 

Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo

I really enjoyed this book. I liked how the world expanded and the world building was really good even though I still wish there was more. The writing as still amazing and fast paced, and I found there was a lot more character development in this one so I was able to relate to the characters a lot better. I loved the secondary characters who were introduced and I like how the plot managed to expand and the stakes became higher without things getting out of hand.

  Look out for my review soon.

 

Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo

This was a very satisfying ending to an amazing series. I liked how the conflict was kept small and manageable by having small numbers and not having massive all out battle scenes, the majority of the plot was about our small band of heroes which was nice to see. I also liked how we got to see more of what happened after the climax of the story, that ending was really heartwarming and haunting.

 Look out for my review soon

 

Maus by Art Spiegelman

I haven’t read many graphic novels so I have to say I just don’t think the art style was for me. I did enjoy reading this, but there were some times when it felt a bit slow for me. I got a bit confused as to who was who in the cast of characters and personally the ending felt a bit rushed. I feel like I have possibly read a few too many WW2 novels to get the full impact of the horrors that this graphic novel detailed, but I still enjoyed reading it.

 

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

I wasn’t really expecting something amazing from this book after hearing so many other people being disappointed, and I kind of agree. It wasn’t horrible, but I don’t think I can hold it seriously in Harry Potter canon. This was just basically an interesting alternative text like a fanfiction. It wasn’t super great, but it was interesting to look at one option of what Harry Potter’s future could have turned out like.

  Look out for my review soon

 

The Siren by Kiera Cass

I found this book highly enjoyable. The premise was nothing like I expected, in terms of world building and creativity I like this book far better than The Selection series. I would be super interested in seeing how this idea played out other times, so much could be done with it. However the whole romance part of the novel felt a bit predictable and I feel like there could have been a better way to use this really interesting premise.

  Look out for my review soon

 

The Klaatu Terminus by Pete Hautman

This was a solid conclusion to the trilogy, it wrapped up all the plots of the story with full exploitation that were really good and it managed to keep up the fast pace and brain twisting links through time/space. Some of the plot twists felt unnecessary, plus there was basically no character development in this book. It probably didn’t help that I hadn’t read the previous books for ages.

 

Rules of the Game by James Frey

I’m sorry but just no, this book did not work for me. The elements I liked in the previous two books in the series, namely the strong character development and interesting plot were completely gone. This book tried to introduce a bunch of new characters and failed to develop them past caricatures. The pacing was so slow in this book, and the ending was completely unsatisfying. There was no “final battle” scene and basically no conclusion to the story.

 

 

Othello by Shakespeare

I had to force myself through this book. I felt like the beginning had nothing happening and the end had everything happening. This book was longer than I was expecting at 5 acts instead of 3. Also I couldn’t bring myself to care about what was going on. I really didn’t like Iago but I didn’t really like Orthello either. I just couldn’t get behind anyone in this book. However this will probably change as I study the text in class.

 

Blue Lily, Lily Blue

This book didn’t feel like anything groundbreaking, nothing amazingly shocking happened but the book continued to plod along at it’s constantly interesting pace. I feel like so much more could have happened in this book but seeing more of Ronan was epic. I liked the introduction of the new characters, and additionally those final few scenes were EPIC. I love how Maggie Stiefvater writes, there are so many things omitted but it somehow works?

 

 

We Own The Sky by Sara Crawford

This books was unlike anything I usually choose to read but especially for the first half of the book I found myself weirdly obsessed with this story. It was very likable and the plot flowed easily. This was very much a slice of life type story with relatively slow pacing so if you’re someone who needs a book to have super quick pacing this probably isn’t for you. I really liked the characters but the romance plot felt a bit much at times.

 Review coming soon

 

In August I Plan to Read

I’m going to keep this list short in the hopes that I can actually read all the book on the list, although I do aim to get to more than this. I have a BUNCH of books on my shelf right now.

       

And yes, I am planning to officially start rereading The Obernewtyn Chronicles!!! This has been a long time coming, but I need to finally finish my favorite series.

Camp Nanowrimo

I had a goal of 2000 minutes spent working on my novel this month. I didn’t quite make it. I had a lot going on with school and I was just so busy.

I had a few days where I did not much writing and other days where I did super a lot of writing. I did more than nothing though, so I am happy.

what books did you read this month?