July Wrap-Up | I went on vacation & read a lot reading & am officially back from my hiatus

As you might have noticed, I’ve been away for a while. I haven’t posted much in the past month and that’s because I was on vacation. I’ve been to so many places and seen so many things and had so many great experiences and it would just be a [WORD} to have to describe it in a single paragraph so I might devote an entire blog post to it. Beside my travel adventures, I’ve also been doing quite a bit of reading. I always love reading on vacation, and somehow when I’m on vacation – and almost only when I’m on vacation – I can just read for hours on end and not be bored a single second. I can really easily find myself being lost in a book, much easier then when I’m at home with a lot of distractions (such as the internet).

For the upcoming few weeks, I have no idea what my blogging schedule is going to look like. I’m going to try to post twice a week, as usual, but I’m not sure I can manage to post on the same days as I always do since my work schedule is a little all over the place and I don’t know when I’ll be able to find the time. Anyway, onto my wrap-up!

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June Wrap-Up | A Month of (mostly) Queer Books

Last month I completely fell in love with non-fiction and this month I just didn’t read any. That’s partly because I didn’t know what to read since it was Pride Month and I wanted to read only queer books and partly because I just didn’t know what to read in general. Anyway, I’ve not gotten some recommendations and browsed around a little and gotten a gist of books I might want to read next, so I’m getting on that this month!

Since it was Pride Month, I wanted to try to only read only books with LGBT+ POCs and I succeeded quite well, I think. Except, A Closed and Common Orbit which I started and have not yet finished, but does not have a queer protagonist (yet?) (which is odd because the first book in the series had so many queer protagonists… but I’m only 40 pages in or so)

May Wrap-Up | The Month I Fell In Love with Non-Fiction

If you’d have asked me two months ago that’d I’d fall in love with non-fiction, I’d have stared at you incredulously. But yet, it happened. I’ve read a lot of books this month and so many of them were non-fiction. And while that’s all fun and games, it has gotten me in a bit of a struggle when it comes to reviews. I always post a review on Saturday, which means I need to review a book a week and when I read a lot more non-fiction (which I have no clue how to review and I think isn’t as interesting to a lot of you), I am pretty much forced to review more of my regular fiction books. Are you still following me? Basically, I need to review more books I normally wouldn’t review because I don’t have that much to say about them. Anyway, that’s not your problem, but I gotta think about how to go about that.

This month was the month I started a new job, got my first real pay check for some freelancing work, made a lot of art and pretty much gave up on writing (oops). I feel like I’ve finally got my life together? Kind of? I mean after months of unemployment and sitting at home, it’s about time I stopped being bored 24/7.

I’m going to divide this wrap-up into a fiction and a non-fiction part so you can skip one or the other if it doesn’t interest you 🙂

April Wrap-Up | Well, Camp NaNoWriMo was a Failure.

April was going to be the month that I wrote a lot and then… I didn’t. You could call it Camp NaNOWriMo instead (sorry for the awful pun but I couldn’t help myself). My initial goal was 50k but I realized after only a few days I was never going to make it so I lowerd it to 30k. And then I ended up writing about 3 thousand words in total oops.

However, it wasn’t a completely useless month because I did do a lot of art, which I absolutely loved doing (I tweet about it a lot here and instagram about it here and here). And I read a lot too! Since I’m leaving this Sunday and I’m writing this in advance, I am not sure if there’s another book that should be added but I already have a lot.

I have read 11 books in April of which 2 were non-fiction books I will skip in this wrap-up because I don’t think you’d be interested.

• Someday, Somewhere by Lindsay Champion 4 stars – I adored this book! It was so much fun and really engaging. It reminded me a lot of The Sun is Also A Star. (review)
• The Gentlemen’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee 5 stars – I loved this so much! It was definitely worth all the hype. I thought it was very funny and I absolutely adored Felicity. I related to so much to her and I can’t wait for her own book to come out! I will most definitely cry.
• The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza by Shaun David Hutchinson 4/4.5 stars – Again, Shaun David Hutchinson has managed to surprise me with one of his crazy ideas. I really enjoyed Elena and her story and the f/f ship was awesome and I just loved it! (review)
• Simon Vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli 5 stars – I listened to this on audiobook, and it’s a reread. I’ve been wanting to reread this since Leah on the Offbeat just came out! I can’t wait to get my copy of Leah on the Offbeat! Also, Simon Vs. was amazing! I laughed and cried and it’s so good!
• Girl Made of Stars by Ashley Herring Blake 5 stars – This was such a good story! It’s about a girl who finds out her twin brother has allegedly raped someone and now she has to deal with the aftermath and trying to figure out who to trust and how. It was emotional and amazing!
• Bubblegum by Sari Taurez 3.5 stars – This was a fun book, that was a little confusing to me as well. There were a lot of things I liked but something just didn’t quite work for me. (review)
• Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee 4.5 stars – I had so much fun reading this book! It’s quite predictable but so much fun! It’s diverse and cute and I adored the characters. (review up now/soon?)
• Not Your Villain by C.B. Lee 4 stars – This is the second book in the Sidekick Squad series and I immediately started this book after finishing Not Your Sidekick and also loved it!
• A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir – I have a lot of mixed opinions on this book and I’m not sure what my final opinion is so I’m putting off rating for now.

Looking back at all that I read, I have had such a good reading month! So many high ratings! I read a lot of these on Scribt which is an amazing audiobook/ebook service that’s about the same price as audible but allows you to read unlimited books.

I do not know how I managed it but I have not added a single book to my tbr in April…?? So I’m skipping the “what I added to my tbr” part of the wrap-up.

Have you read any of these books? Did you like them or dislike them? How was your reading month? Have you ever tried an audiobook or ebook subscription?

March Wrap-Up | IndieAthon is over

I hope you all enjoyed IndieAthon! I had lots of fun and read some great books, and also discovered a bunch of books I’d like to read! Since March is over, I’m going back to my regular blogging schedule and will hopefully get back to writing three posts a week and more discussion posts. Another thing that’s different this month, is that I will be taking part in Camp NaNoWriMo once again. I haven’t really talked about it yet on here but there will be more info on what I am working on and of course progress updates soon. If you want to stay up-to-date on everything related to my writing, I would suggest following me on instagram or twitter, since that is where I will be doing most of the updates.

Let’s take a look at all the books I read this month, I’ve read quite a few!

February Wrap-Up | Yeah, I’m still alive

Do not worry, I am still on this planet earth and have not been abducted by aliens. Nor have I died. I haven’t been able to post last weekend because I’ve been in bed with a fever since Friday. The fever has passed but now it’s just a very annoying cold that has me sobbing and sniffing constantly which is very distracting. Since I’m still not feeling 100%, I’ll keep this post short.

I read little this month. I’m currently finishing up two books which I hope to have finished by the end of today so I’m just going to count them as read.

January Wrap-Up

January was such a weird month. It was very stressful and my mental health was all over the place. But there were good things too and I read a lot of good books! I have yet to reply to all your wonderful comments from the past few days, but I promise, I will! I’m currently finishing up my bachelor end thesis so I haven’t been in the right state of mind nor have I found the time.

December Wrap-Up

Remember how I said I wasn’t going to read that much anymore? Well, let’s forget that for a bit because I’ve been reading so much this month! Mainly because of Riveted, which allowed people to read 25 books for one day each. That was really fun (and a little stressful). I’ve also read some other books and overall had a pretty great month! Christmas was fun (and I got a few books), and I got some eARCs, and blogging has been great too! I hope you had wonderful days too!

November Wrap-Up: The Month of Writing

Since NaNoWriMo took place in November and I was busy writing 50 thousand words (which I managed, yay), I haven’t had a lot of time to read. So I’ve been reading a little less than I normally do, but I don’t really mind. Not at all, actually. I think I’m going to try to not read as much as I normally do, is that a weird thing to say? I’ve been reading ~10 books per month for this entire year and it’s a bit crazy. I love reading but I’m constantly trying to push myself to read more, and that’s just not a good thing.

This month I’ve read 6 books, which is a really good amount!

October Wrap-Up

Because I decided yesterday morning, to change my entire NaNoWriMo plan around, I’m a little later with my wrap-up than I wanted to be. My October was really good, I read a lot of great books which I rated 4-5 stars and only one I didn’t like!

 

• Daughter of the Burning City by Amanda Foody – ★★★★ This book was magical, had amazing worldbuilding, great characters and a lot of mystery! I loved the plot twists! And there was a lot of LGBT+ diversity, with one ace-spec character, a bi character, a lesbian character and probably more but I can’t recall.
• Moxie by Jennifer Matthieu – ★★★★ Moxie is a feminist story, it’s really empowering and is sooo relevant for this age. It was feminist, inspirational, enjoyable and at times funny! I definitely recommend it!
• What’s A Girl Gotta Do? by Holly Bourne – ★★★★★ Another amazing feminist book. It’s by an author that I’ve started to consider to be one of my favourites. Holly Bourne writes books that are so realistic, funny and inspirational. I love them to pieces.
• This Mortal Coil by Emily Suvada ★★★★★ This is a refreshing new dystopia/sci-fi/post-apocalyptic story that grabbed me from the start until the very end, and left me gasping with the many twists and turns. (review here)
• Our Dark Duet by V.E. Schwab ★★★★★ I’M STILL IN DENIAL THIS DIDN’T HAPPEN. A M A Z I N G, as usual.
• Tash Hearts Tolstoy by Kathryn Ormsbree ★★★★.5 This book was so relatable for me, the way it dealt with asexuality was really good! It did have some aromisic comments though, so… yeah. Anyway, it was a lot of fun and I really like all the characters!
• Achilles by Greg Boose ★★ This book was just not as good as I’d hoped. The characters were shallow, the story too chaotic and it just didn’t grab me. (review here)
• Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin ★★★★.5 I had the brilliant idea to start this book while I was in Berlin, because it is about WWII and takes partly place in Berlin. The concept was so original and I loved it! I had never thought a book about motor racing in a historic setting would be a thing I’d like, but I was so wrong!
• Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo ★★★★.5 I buddy-read this with the lovely Amy-Louise and Luna (who are both amazing so go check out their blogs) and we all enjoyed the book so much! Review up soon!

 

What I added to my tbr:

 

A few of these are eARCs I’ve received (All the Ways to Here by Emily O’Beirne, Weave A Circle Round by Kari Maaren and Nothing but Sky by Amy Trueblood) and the rest are recent additions! I’ve finally gotten a copy of The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, so I’m excited for that one! The Nowhere Girls by Amy Reed and The Wicker King by K. Ancrum sound really good as well!

How was your reading month? Got any exciting plans for November? Any of these books you’ve read? What did you think? Any recommendations on what to read next?