August Reading Wrap Up

You may have noticed that you’re getting this wrap up a bit later than usual. (Or maybe you didn’t, and that’s okay too). That my friends is because school has started up again. You may also have noticed that we haven’t been blog hopping recently, and once again school is to blame. In fact, we’re doing so badly at keeping up with all aspects of blogging, that we’ve decided to tone things down until our lives are more manageable. So you’ll be seeing fewer posts from us every month, and we may only be commenting on blogs sporadically, depending on if we have the time and energy.

But this month wasn’t all doom and gloom! We both read a whole bunch of books, and today we’re here to talk about all of them! So sit back, relax, and scroll your way through a little recap of how we fared in August!

Books Read:

Malka:

This month was super weird in terms of my reading. It was definitely a quantity over quality month, but the month didn’t start that way! I began August with a whole bunch of 4 star reads, and was really excited to have an amazing reading month. Then I hit a patch of 3 star reads, where I was worried I’d have no 5 star reads at all this month. Fortunately that was not the case and I read Felix Ever After, which was fantastic! But I did end my month with four 3 star reads in the span of 2 days, so that was disappointing. (Also some of the 3 stars were more of 2.5 stars, which was quite sad).

But let’s focus on the positive! I managed to read 14 books this month, mostly because less than half of them were full novels. I discovered in the very beginning of August that I can enjoy manga! My prior experiences with manga had all been disappointing, but I finally discovered what kinds of story I do and don’t enjoy in this format, and I’m excited to continue some of the series I started, and to start even more series in the coming months. Out of the ones I read, Spy x Family was my favorite! I enjoyed it so much that I immediately pre-ordered the next volume, which I can’t wait to read!

I also read most of the books that I said I would last month, and since I’m terrible at keeping to TBRs, 4/5 is a pretty great outcome! (The only one I didn’t finish is Helium, but I have started it! So if I really wanted I could say that I achieved that goal fully since the point was for the books to leave my TBR shelf, which all 5 did!)

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Rating: 5 out of 5.

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Rating: 4 out of 5.

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Rating: 3 out of 5.

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Chana:

This month started out pretty strong for me in terms of reading and blogging, but with the end of the month came the dreaded restarting of school! So both my blog-hopping and reading petered out significantly (aka, they’re both currently non-existent). I ended up reading 12 books this month, which puts me 3 books behind my (reduced) reading challenge. I am pretty happy with what I read this month though! There are a few books I wasn’t able to get to, Shadow of Kyoshi and The Wolf of Oren-Yaro in particular, that I’ll hopefully read this month.

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Rating: 5 out of 5.

Darius the Great was a reread and omg I loved it even more the second time I read it. It’s just so well written and relatable.

I also read my first N.K Jemisin book this month! It was really good and I had hoped to finish the trilogy this month…but I started the second one and haven’t really been able to get into it, so we’ll see.

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Rating: 4 out of 5.

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Rating: 3 out of 5.

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Rating: 2 out of 5.

I guess I’m leaving little blurbs for my highest and lowest rated books! The Raven Tower wasn’t *bad*, I would just describe it as underwhelming. I didn’t enjoy the narrative style, and I found it to be a bit boring.

White Rabbit I just didn’t enjoy. I wasn’t invested in the story and the “mystery” felt a bit weak and low stakes.

Books Acquired:

Malka:

This month I acquired 10 books, but I didn’t purchase most of them. The ones I did purchase myself were primarily impulse buys, where I had been considering whether or not I wanted to read a book, and then I just randomly decided to buy it when I was in a book store, or browsing online because I was in a bad mood and needed retail therapy. I’m happy though, because two of the books I bought are genres that I don’t tend to read, which makes excited to broaden my reading tastes, while I’m excited for the other two since they’re both diverse romances, which I adore!

Purchased:

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In terms of the books I was gifted, I made life easy on my friends this year, and finally created an Amazon wishlist a few months back with the knowlege that it would be used to purchase birthday presents. So all of these books were ones I really wanted, and am so glad to read them and to just have them in my collection! Most of these books are graphic novels, which was intentional, since school has started and I no longer have the time or energy to read full novels, but I still want to have books on hand for those times where I’m in the reading mood!

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Gifted:

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Chana:

Ahh, I got so many books this month! Definitely the most books I’ve gotten in a month since quarantine started.

Purchased:

Shoutout to Darius the Great Deserves Better. It’s so pretty and I loved it!! I’m really happy that I ended up pre-ordering it. 10/10 would recommend the duology.

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Gifted:

Things We Did:

Malka:

True to my word last month I both baked and completed a puzzle! I don’t have any pictures of the banana bread or oatmeal squares that I made, but I do have a picture of the puzzle!

Then I spent a good few days moving out of the apartment I had while I was in college. Since classes are online this semester, I couldn’t keep my apartment which makes me really sad because it was a great living situation with fantastic roommates. So that took a significant chunk of my time this month.

But arguably the most exciting thing that happened this month was my birthday! I had Chana and another friend (Hi, Huvi!) over for a social distanced birthday party. It was pretty low key except for the fact that my mother decided to order me a cake in the shape of a book, with my bookshelves as the cover art! I’m sharing a picture or two because it was so cool, and so very thoughtful!

Chana:

I did nothing! At the end of last month I ended my summer internship and my summer classes so I had most of August free to just do nothing! The beginning of my August was super chill and nice, but obviously at the end school started and things descended into chaos.

It’s only been two weeks of classes so far, but I’m kind of liking them! Kind of because even though they’re interesting, they’re also super stressful and very assignment heavy. This is also the first semester of my (probably) senior year! Even though all classes are online it’s still pretty exciting.

Posts We Loved:

May @ Forever & Everly shared how she uses her reading spreadsheets.

Caitlin @ Caitlin Althea wrote a fantastic post about how to support book bloggers!

Rhi @ Marshmallow Harmonies recommended 20 books for different moods

Apologies for this section being so small this month, our blog hopping has not been up to par! If you had any posts you wrote this month that you want to share with us, link it in the comments!

How was your reading in August? Have you started school again? Did you do anything fun and exciting last month?