June 2022 Reading Wrap Up

Ah, June! The month where everything happened. Not only did I have several major life events this month, but apparently being out of school means my reading pace is back to what it was pre-college, which is so exciting! Even with LOTS of things going on, I still managed to read 10 entire books! So I can’t wait to talk to you about them all!

Books Read:

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

I have only had four 5 star reads so far this year, but this was one of them! I adore Whitney Gardner’s weird and wacky graphic novels so very much. I flew through the story late one night and just had the greatest time. I can’t wait to read whatever she puts out next! Long Distance is about a girl that goes reluctantly to a summer camp, but soon her and some other campers realize that some weird things are going on, and they are determined to figure out all the weirdness! I’m not going to tell you more because half the fun is finding all this out for yourself, but I definitely would recommend picking this one up!

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⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.

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Then there were a bunch of 4 star reads this month! Pillow Thoughts is a poetry collection that I started many times in the years since I purchased it (Pre-COVID! In an in person book store!) I finally read it from start to finish one night in June and I really was so moved by it! Not my favorite poetry collection, but definitely one I want to keep and flip through every once in a while.

I’m So Not Over You was a NetGalley title that I was WAAAAAAAAY behind on. I had a really interesting experience with this one, since I nearly DNFed it less than 5 chapters in, but after I got into it this ended up being a definite 4 star read even though I’m still unable to unravel my thoughts as to what ended up hooking me so much!

The Golden Hour was more of a 3.5 star read, but it was a really great graphic novel unpacking PTSD and friendship and coping mechanisms and rural living and I really enjoyed how it was told!

Lastly for my 4 star reads, we have A Girl Like Her, which I picked up on a whim when I saw it was free on Kindle for one week only. I then devoured it in just 2 days and plan on continuing on with the series, so if that isn’t an endorsement for how engrossing this book is, I don’t know what else will sell you on it!

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⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.

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Jukebox was a cute story, but I felt like it didn’t really have much purpose, nor did it explain or unpack all the different eras that these girls time traveled to. So a 3 star rating was fitting.

Ramon and Julieta is honestly more of a 2.5 star, because I didn’t ship the romance whatsoever. I loved all the aspects of culture and gentrification, but I want to enjoy a romance if that’s what I’m promised. These two act so stupidly when they’re together and it aggravated me to no end. I was really anticipating this one too, so it was a quite the disappointment.

Shark Summer was a fun sort of graphic novel taking place on Martha’s Vineyard and following a quirky cast of characters. I loved the art and the myths and the character dynamics, but I didn’t love the story so much. It’s still one I’d recommend to movie lovers that love graphic novels though.

Everything For You is an interesting case. It’s a solid 3 star read, but honestly at this point I read the Bergman Brother books when my brain is numb, so take that with a grain of salt. It also reminded me a lot of a milder version of Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid, but I much preferred that take on the enemy sports players trope, so that may have impacted my enjoyment as well. But if you tend to like Chloe Liese, chances are you’ll like this one more than I did.

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⭐⭐

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Ah, this book. Oh boy did it let me down. There were some things that this book at least tried unpacking, but by the end there were too many things that were just making so MAD. I’m especially annoyed because these characters did certain actions that made me not ship them by the end. And for a romance, that’s a death sentence. But I felt like they had killed any trust they had between them, and just didn’t see any healthy recovery in such a short span of pages. So 2 stars it is.

Books Acquired:

NetGalley:

Firstly, I broke my 2 month streak of not requesting or accepting anything on NetGalley. But a Jewish queer Christmas/Chanukah holiday story was Read Now for just a few days! How was I supposed to pass that up!

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Purchased:

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I bought Everything For You in anticipation of a slump and it was a really good call! You’ve already seen that I’ve read it, so yay for efficiency!

I then purchased 3 graphic novels to expand my collection, and promptly didn’t read any of them! But here’s to hoping that you see Miss Quinces, Hooky, and Swim Team on some wrap ups in the near future!

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Publisher:

HTP Books spoiled me this past month with ARCs of For Butter or Worse and Ben and Beatriz and that made me so happy. I’ve already read Ben and Beatriz though, and since I loved it so much I’m thinking of doing a giveaway for the book! Would you prefer an ARC giveaway or should I give away a finished copy instead? I’m open to either!

And chances are you’ll see For Butter or Worse in July’s wrap up since it comes out in just a few short weeks. So I’d better start reading!

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Quarterly Goals Update:

If you want to see more details about these goals, let me link you to the post where I set them! Most of these are pretty self-explanatory though, so let’s so how I’m doing half way through the year!

Discussion Challenge:

Honestly, I don’t think I’m doing too great at this so far this year. Part of that comes from the fact that I haven’t been blogging much in general, but it’s still disappointing to me that I haven’t posted more discussions. I’d love to say that I’ll be prioritizing writing more in the second half of the year, but I don’t know if that will actually be happening, so I don’t want to make any promises. Although I do have some ideas, so perhaps?

Only Buying 60 Books in 2022:

I am definitely still on track for this one! I have not gone over my limit of buying approximately 5 books per month at all so far! In fact, I believe I’m only at 24 books purchased in 2022! Look at me having self restraint!

Continue Unhauling:

Honestly, I’m killing this goal. I’ve unhauled so many books this year already and it feels great! I hope I keep on getting rid of the books that I don’t enjoy, since it makes my shelves such a more curated space!

Reaching 950 Followers:

I don’t think this one will happen anymore because of my lack of consistency with posting, and I’m slowly making my peace with that. As of posting this wrap up, I have 892 followers which is amazing! And honestly, even if I just cross the threshold to 900 followers with 8 new friends, I’ll be so happy!

Reading Experiments:

1. New Genres

I READ A POETRY COLLECTION! I CAN NOW OFFICIALLY SAY I HAVE MADE PROGRESS! I truly do have plans to branch out in terms of genre now that I’ve graduated and have more headspace for non-romance and graphic novels. So hopefully in September, even if I haven’t finished this goal, I will have read at least another book or two outside my usual comfort genres!

2. Writing Reviews for a Month

Listen, this month was super busy. I did not have time to be writing reviews! Especially not for 10 books! So this experiment waits for another month, yet again!

Achieving the 100% NetGalley Feedback Ratio:

I hilariously thought that I could achieve this goal by the end of June. Spoiler alert: I did not. I currently have 8 books that need to be read and reviewed and 2 books that I have widgets for that I will soon cave and download. So that’s not unreasonable, but since we’re halfway through the year and I keep averaging the same amount of books that need to be read and reviewed on NetGalley each time we check in, I’m not sure this goal will be reached. But I’m going to try my hardest regardless!

Do A Quarterly Check In:

As you can see, I’m still doing these check ins! It’s not much fun to see the goals I’m failing at, but hopefully these check ins will shame me in to completing as many goals as I can!

Things I Did:

Looking back at this month I realized that SO MUCH HAPPENED.

Let’s start from the beginning.

First, I graduated! I’m now officially a biomedical engineer! I had such a great time at my graduation (despite getting a massive sunburn from being in the sun for 6 hours) and the fun didn’t stop there! My mother invited some neighbors and friends over that night for a mini graduation party and it was such a cute way to celebrate!

Next, in less exciting news, I got COVID! I had been pretty busy with a family weekend we had and some job interviews, so at first I thought I was just run down, but no. I was in bed all day one day, and then my mother and step-father started getting symptoms as well, and it was very much not a fun week for me. It was made even less fun by the fact that I had my trip to Italy planned at the end of the month, and I needed to be sure I’d be up to traveling by then!

Thankfully, I was feeling better by the time I was scheduled to leave to Italy (and of course I made sure the timing worked so I was allowed to travel as well) so the trip went forward as planned! It was SO much fun getting to take a much needed vacation in a foreign country! I visited Rome, Florence, and Milan, saw lots of art (like, LOTS and LOTS of art), and ate some delicious food!

Lastly, and possibly most excitingly, I GOT A JOB! It’s super exciting and I’ll be starting in a few months, but it also means I’ll be quite busy since I have to move! I can’t wait to chat about it more once I’ve actually been working for a few months and have a better grasp of what I’ll be doing, but essentially I’ll be working with medical devices, which is exactly what I wanted to do, so that makes me so very happy!

Posts I Loved:

I get to bring this section back because I actually blog hopped in the beginning of June! I caught up on some posts from people I’m subscribed to (some from back in 2021!) as well as some other blogs that I browsed while I had free time. These are the only two I remembered to write down, but hopefully you’ll see this section grow in future months!

Sara @ Millennial Book Review wrote a fantastic post with a guide to writing negative reviews.

Krysta @ Pages Unbound discussed what readers owe authors.

Whew! You reached the end of this post! I can’t wait to hear all your thoughts on what I read and purchased and did! Be sure to chat with me in the comments about ALL THE THINGS!

What was your favorite thing you read this month? Do you have any summer vacation plans? How are you doing on your yearly goals?