September Reading Wrap Up

Another month has passed! And it’s still 2020! As promised in our last wrap-up, we didn’t really post so much this month. We originally hoped that we’d be able to post at least once a week, but we weren’t able to reach that goal in September. Maybe in October we’ll do better!

We know we mention it constantly but SCHOOL WAS STRESSFUL THIS MONTH. And will 100% continue to be stressful. Also it was the Jewish high holidays this month! Which was super great because now that the Jewish New Year has passed we’ve decided that all the badness that came with 2020 (5780) is gone! New year new me and all that. Anyways, enough with the rambling, and on to the books!

Books Read:

Malka:

This month was really rough for me, and that’s definitely reflected in my reading! For one thing, I didn’t finish a book until halfway through the month. For another, all I read were graphic novels/manga and romances. While that’s in no way a bad thing, one of the signs that my mental health is floundering is the inability to read anything other than these genres, because these kinds of books don’t require much brain power for me. But all that being said, I ended up reading 6 books, and I really enjoyed them all!

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Rating: 5 out of 5.

This book was definitely my favorite of the month! I read it TWICE and I need to buy my own copy, because I originally read it from the library.

This book reminds me of one of my other favorite books, Soppy, in that it’s just a bunch of little moments of cuteness between a couple. But in this case the couple consists of a vampire that’s dating a werewolf!

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Rating: 4 out of 5.

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Rating: 3 out of 5.

I have a review for the Sophie Jordan book before this one. Her books are fun and I enjoy them, but they’re not very memorable.

Noise was a cute graphic novel, but since it was only 28 pages, there wasn’t much of a story for me to get invested in. But it still helped my reading challenge!

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Chana:

I don’t even remember this month to be honest. I didn’t read much (yayyy school!) I didn’t blog like at all (RIP). I’m hoping I’ll be more motivated and productive in October when it comes to reading and blogging, but my course load this semester is pretty heavy so I haven’t been having much free time. I managed to read 8 books this month and I’m really happy with a bunch of them!

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Rating: 5 out of 5.

I don’t want to sound over the top, but this is literally one of the best books I have ever read. I really enjoyed most of Fredrik Backman’s previous books (you must check out A Man Called Ove and Britt Marie Was Here if you haven’t read them yet), but this is my favorite one yet! His characters are all so deep and whimsical and there are so many fantastic twists. Also as always Fredrik Backman always manages to make his books super meaningful, and mental health and suicide were spoken about in this book a lot.

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Rating: 4 out of 5.

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Rating: 3 out of 5.

The Best Lies was so good!! The tagline really sums it up, but it’s a thriller centering on an unhealthy codependent friendship. I really loved how the book explored the trope where sometimes people will exalt people with trauma as “special” or better than others, it was so great!

And as always I have a good 3 star and a meh three star, and Doodleville was the meh. It was cute, but it was a bit too childish for my tastes (which makes sense, and it was cute, so I’d still recommend it!).

Books Acquired:

Malka:

I think this might be my smallest haul in a while, that also contains the strangest mix of books. There’s a romance, there’s a manga, there are some graphic novels thrown into the mix, and I think most surprisingly, there’s a classic! I was inspired to buy Frankenstein because I saw everyone getting all excited about Halloween and spooky reads, and I felt left out because I’m a big wimp. But I figured I should be able to handle Frankenstein, and I’ve been meaning to read it for a while, so hopefully I finally get to it next month, now that I have a copy!

As for The Roommate, that was one of my most anticipated releases of the year, and I ended up winning a Goodreads giveaway for a Kindle copy a few days before the book came out, which was really exciting since I got to start it early! Then my pre-order arrived and I got to finish the last few pages physically!

Purchased:

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While I’m so happy about all the books I purchased for myself, I am ESTATIC that I was approved for a review copy of Act Your Age, Eve Brown. If you couldn’t tell from my review, I absolutely loved Take a Hint, Dani Brown. And this was THE most requested book in the romance section on NetGalley, so I was shocked when I received the email letting me know I could download the e-ARC! But now I need to make the decision whether to read it 6 months early and have no one to talk about it with, or if I should just read it now because I’m so excited for it! Please feel free to weigh in on this dilemma. What should I do?

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NetGalley:

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Chana:

I am planning on buying SO MANY books in October, so ya’ll better brace yourself for next months haul. The books I got this month are courtesy of my grandmother (shoutout to the best Bubby ever), I was able to spend time with her for the first time since COVID started in belated celebration of our birthdays (we share a birthday) and she got me these wonderful books!

Gifted:

Things We Did:

The very first thing we need to mention is the fact that WE WON FOR BEST DISCUSSION IN THE BOOK BLOGGER AWARDS! Thank you so much for all your nominations and votes! Words can’t express how much all your support means to us and we’re so happy to be a part of such an amazing community. You guys are the bestest and we love you all! 🥺❤️

Malka:

I got a new desk! It’s a standing desk that you can set to heights of your choosing. So I have options for both standing and sitting, and it’s great to be able to stretch while still taking notes during class! Plus, I’m very proud of the fact that I built the desk myself! (Even if it took 3 people to carry in the boxes that the desk itself came in because of how heavy it was!)

My library also gave away books they no longer wanted in their collection one day this month. I got so many freebie romance novels, but I haven’t hauled them, since I probably won’t be keeping most of them. But it still made me really happy to browse the books, and pick up so many new things to read!

I also want to mention that I’m super behind not only at blog hopping, but also at responding to comments. If you’ve commented, please know that I’ve seen your comment and will be responding as soon as I can! These last few weeks have been super hectic with tests, projects, and holidays, but I hope to play some catch up sometime soon. So know that I’m not ignoring you, and I look forward to answering you all!

Chana:

I finished watching Legend of Korra! I’ve been watching it with a friend of mine over Netflix Party since it came out on Netflix and it’s been so fun! The next show on our list is She-Ra, which I’m excited for but I also know will take us at least a month because it’s 5 whole seasons.

I was doing boring school related stuff for the rest of the month, there isn’t much excitement that can be had with everything still shut down (or so I am telling myself), but I’m super excited for the fall season! I don’t celebrate Halloween and I don’t really like pumpkin spice but the general ✨ vibe ✨ that fall offers gets me so excited!!

Posts We Love:

This section is exceptionally small because of how little blog hopping we’ve been doing, but hopefully we’ll be better next month!

Ezrah @ I Heart Romance wrote an absolutely fantastic post about the lack of diversity in audiobooks!

Abi @ Scribbles & Stories talked about some of the downsides to receiving ARCs and I found it super relatable!

How was your September? Did you read anything good? Is school taking over your life too? Do you like the Fall?