August 01, 2018

July Wrap-Up & August TBR

So I finished 12 books this month! Technically 15, but I'm not gonna link up rereads/already reviewed books. So I've had another solid reading month!

What I Read This Month:

• War Storm (Red Queen #4) by Victoria Aveyard (3.5/5 Stars)
• Strange The Dreamer (Strange The Dreamer #1) by Laini Taylor (5/5 Stars)
• Renegades (Renegades #1) by Marissa Meyer (4/5 Stars)
• Children of Blood and Bone (Legacy of Orisha #1) by Tomi Adeyemi (5/5 Stars)

So I genuinely thin War Storm was my least favorite read this month. Honestly, it wasn't a great ending to the Red Queen series and didn't even come close to seriously wrapping up the story. I was incredibly disappointed. The thing I liked the most was Evangeline honestly. However Strange, Renegades and Children were AMAZING reads and I absolutely thoroughly enjoyed them. 

• The Assassin's Blade (Throne of Glass #0.1-0.5) by Sarah J. Maas (4/5 Stars)
• Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass #1) by Sarah J. Maas (4/5 Stars)
• Champion (Legend #3) by Marie Lu (4/5 Stars)
• Pacifica by Kristen Simmons (5/5 Stars)

So I've finally started the Throne of Glass books and I'm really enjoying them. I'll be reading the next 2 books for August along with the read-along. I finally finished the Legend trilogy, I've come to realize I have an issue with Marie Lu's endings. I was frustrated by the ending to the Legend trilogy and I was frustrated by The Young Elites trilogy ending. They aren't good endings. I really loved Pacifica though! I thought it was a really good, potentially realistic dystopian book. 

• Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children #1) by Ransom Riggs (4/5 Stars)
• The House of One Thousand Eyes by Michelle Barker (4/5 Stars) *Review will be posted on August 10th.*
• American Panda by Gloria Chao (4/5 Stars)
• Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins (5/5 Stars)

So Miss Peregrine's, One Thousand Eyes, and American Panda were my Dewey's reads! American Panda was my first full audiobook and I genuinely enjoyed it! It's hit and miss with me and audiobooks but American Panda's was definitely a hit! Also finished my ARC of The House of One Thousand Eyes! I really enjoyed it. If you like historical fiction or cold war related books, I'd definitely suggest picking it up when it releases in September!

Happening On The Blog In July:

• I did the Mid-Year Book Freakout Tag! 
• I also posted about the Best Books I've Read So Far In 2018!
• I signed up for ARC August! Come check out the ARCs I plan on trying to get read! Let me know if you'll be participating as well!
• I participated in Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon! Come check out my updates and see how much I got read! 

Posts I Enjoyed Around The Blogosphere This Past Month:

• Marie @ Drizzle & Hurricane Books talks about How To Organize Your Book Blogging Life!
• Shealea @ That Bookshelf Bitch talks about How To Read More Books Legally and for Free in response to the book pirating conversation that erupted on twitter.
• Krysta @ Pages Unbound talks about Why Amazon Can Never Replace The Public Library in response to the atrocious Forbes article that has since been removed saying Amazon should replace libraries (yeah, no).

Ok everyone, this is only part of my TBR. I'm only featuring my normal TBR for the month, not including TBR's for challenges/read-a-thons I'm doing. I will be participating in ARC August and Bout of Books. My ARC August TBR is linked here and I'll be posting my Bout of Books TBR closer to. Some of these TBR books might make their way into Bout of Books, but we'll see how far I've got with them when the time comes to determine how many of them.

• Gemina (The Illuminae Files #2) by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff 
• Obsidio (The Illuminae Files #3) by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff
• A Study In Charlotte (Charlotte Holmes #1) by Brittany Cavallaro
• Stalking Jack The Ripper (Stalking Jack The Ripper #1) by Kerri Maniscalco

So I didn't get the chance to buy copies of Gemina and Obsidio in time to read them in July. I did finally get them on July 30th though. So they are going to be read in August (It's the 1st and I'm almost done with Gemina, I wasn't joking! LOL). I've also seen some raving about both Charlotte and Jack the Ripper so I'm super excited to read these in August! Should be nice short easy reads too!

• Crown of Midnight (Throne of Glass #2) by Sarah J. Maas
• Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass #3) by Sarah J. Maas
• The Cruel Prince (Folk of the Air #1) by Holly Black
• Hollow City (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children #2) by Ransom Riggs

So like I mentioned last month. I'm following along with the Throne of Glass Readalong hosted by world of Sarah J Maas to read the series before Kingdom of Ash comes out. So Augusts books are #2 and #3. 

• Days of Blood & Starlight (Daughter of Smoke & Bone #2) by Laini Taylor
• Dreams of Gods & Monsters (Daughter of Smoke & Bone #3) by Laini Taylor
• The Darkest Minds (The Darkest Minds #1) by Alexandra Bracken 
• Everless (Everless #1) by Sara Holland

So I wanna finish the Smoke and Bone series. And I wanna finally read The Darkest Minds, which has been sitting on my kindle for ages since the movie is coming out. 

• Uglies (Uglies #1) by Scott Westerfeld
• Pretties (Uglies #2) by Scott Westerfeld
• Specials (Uglies #3) by Scott Westerfeld
• Extras (Uglies #4) by Scott Westerfeld

So I'll be buddy reading these with Angelica @ Paperback Princess. If you weren't aware, these books are some of my ALL TIME FAVORITES. There's a new book coming out in September set in the Uglies world named Impostors. So I'll be low stress rereading the Uglies series to get myself back in that world in preparation for Impostors. I'm so excited not only for the new book, but to reread these! They hold a special place for me. They were some of the first books I read when I was getting into reading a lot and actually, the very first books I reviewed on this blog when I created it.