Here are the books I read in July:
Favorite books of the month:
What the Wind Knows by Amy Harmon
Hum if You Don’t Know the Words by Bianca Marais
19 Minutes by Jodi Picoult
Pretty Little Liars by Sara Shepard
4 Stars
This is a YA thriller, following a group of five friends. Their ring leader Alison knows all their dirty secrets, but when they are young, she disappears. A few years later, they start getting notes about their secrets, signed A.
This book was fairly enjoyable for a fluff read, but I was disappointed after reading The Perfectionists by the same author. This book was more fluffy, had more sexual content, and the characters were all pretty messed up and not very good people. And while it was an okay read, I won't be continuing the series. Instead, I just looked up spoilers online.
19 Minutes by Jodi Picoult
4 Stars
This book follows a school shooting, looking at the events leading up to it and the key players in the aftermath.
I found this to be very enjoyable and thought provoking. It follows a lot of characters and goes back and forth between present and past very often, which made it hard to keep track of everything at first. Once I got used to it, though, I couldn’t put it down and it really made me think. One of its strengths is the way it looks at a lot of different sides of the situation; the one perspective we don’t get to understand, which disappointed me, was the “bully” of the school.
Snapshot by Brandon Sanderson
5 Stars
This was a reread for me. My husband and I listened to it together on a car trip, it’s about a 3 hour audiobook, as it’s a novella.
It is a sci-fi detective story. Society can create a “snapshot”, or exact replica of a day, but when you send people into the snapshot, it changes things in the snapshot. They send in a couple of detectives when a crime is committed, who do their best not to mess up the snapshot while also getting information or proof.
The first time I read this, I didn’t really like it as much. The second time through, I enjoyed it more. It’s a really interesting story and I hope he writes more, making it a series.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
5 Stars
This was another reread for me. I reread the trilogy in preparation for the newly released prequel. I hadn’t read this since high school, so I had no idea if I would still like it or not, but I loved it still!
Suzanne Collins does a fabulous job with tension, characters, world building, and foreshadowing. I have a more in depth review, from the perspective of a writer, that I will link down below.
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
4 Stars
I didn’t love Catching Fire in high school, it felt too much like a repeat of the first to me at the time. This time around, I was able to appreciate and notice the focus on politics and the rebellion more, and enjoyed it more this time around. I bumped up my rating by one star.
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
3 Stars
This book was actually similar, in that I bumped it up a star since reading it in high school. As a teenager, I hated this book. I felt depressed while reading it, hated what she did to my favorite characters, and left feeling dissatisfied with the ending despite Katniss ending up with who I wanted her to.
I still don’t love the book, but I can appreciate the direction Collins went with it even if it’s not for me. I’d love to hear, if you enjoyed the third book, what you liked about it!
Someday Maybe by Colleen Hoover
2 Stars
This was my main audiobook read of the month. I generally like contemporary romance and I’ve heard good things about Colleen Hoover. I honestly didn’t like this book at all, though I feel a pull to keep reading.
We follow two protagonists, a girl named Sydney who finds out her roommate and her boyfriend have been cheating on her for two years, and a boy named Ridge, who rescues Sydney when she has no place else to go. Then of course, they try not to fall in love (because he has an awesome girlfriend) while spending massive amounts of time alone together (including in his bedroom).
This book just annoyed me. You can find a more in depth review on Goodreads if you’re interested, but basically, it annoyed me because they kept “trying” not to be attracted to each other or act on that attraction, but then kept putting themselves in situations where it was hard, or even impossible. And they end up cheating together emotionally--no they never sleep together, but he shares stuff with Sydney that he has never told anyone even his girlfriend--and they do kiss, and don’t tell the girlfriend. This took up 90% of the story line, and the longer it went on, the more it frustrated me. I’ll stop now, before this turns into a rant.
The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
4 Stars
This was the next short story collection in the Sherlock Holmes series and I really enjoyed it. I tend to really like the short story collections; they are interesting and don’t have a lot of explanation at the end, like some of the novels. I usually just read one a day when I’m reading a collection like this.
Hum if You Don’t Know the Words by Bianca Marais
5 Stars
This was a story set in Africa, during the Soweto Uprising. It follows an African lady looking for her daughter and a white child who loses her parents.
I am so glad I read this. It was so touching, helped me think about and understand people different from me, and taught an amazing lesson about love and friendship. I would highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys historical fiction.
Bonds that Make us Free by C Terry Warner
4 Stars
This is a self help type book, though it’s pretty different from most that I’ve read. The main idea is that the way we see other people influences the way we feel about them, and hence the way that we treat them. That then affects the way they act. The way we see and feel about them is something that we are in more control of than we tend to think.
I didn’t necessarily love the book, it felt long winded and I didn’t agree with the way he talked about certain ideas, BUT I still feel this book is a must read. The ideas in the book are life changing and it’s honestly been a very humbling experience to realize how often I am in the wrong and to realize that I have more to repent of than I recognized before. I think
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins
3.5 Stars
This is the prequel for the Hunger Games, recently released. I honestly went into this thinking that I wouldn’t like it very much, but it surprised me. I enjoyed learning some of the history that we know from the original trilogy and I actually loved learning about Snow’s character. He was interesting to read about, because he’s never really good, but he doesn’t really start off as bad either. My favorite part was seeing how the Hunger Games that we knew began and became what they were.
I did feel it slowed down a bit about ⅔ of the way through, but it picked up again. Besides being a little long, it was a fun read and I would recommend it to anyone who liked the original trilogy. I would also recommend reading the trilogy again before picking this up if it’s been awhile, I am really glad I did that.
TMNT Change is Constant by Kevin Eastman
5 Stars
I have never been into comic books and I actually don’t think I read a single one before I found BookTube. Last year, I did a Marvel movie marathon and it got me interested in reading some of the comics, so I got some recommendations from my brother (who knows me really well AND reads a lot of comics). I’ve been trying different ones and so far, this has been my favorite!
I really liked the artwork. I liked how it looked and it was easy to follow what was going on (that’s really important to me). I loved the plot line, it was familiar to me but I was still interested in it. I also felt like it flowed really well. One thing about comics is that sometimes it feels like they have to tell a lot, but I didn’t feel that way with this comic.
What the Wind Knows by Amy Harmon
5 Stars
I finished off the month really strong with an historical romance. This was set in Ireland in the 1920’s. It has time travel and romance and a lot of history that I didn’t know very much about before. I love Ireland though (I did Irish step dancing all growing up) and this reawakened my desire to visit there someday.
It took me a little bit to get into the story, but I’m so glad I persevered! I cried and laughed and was totally sucked into the story. I cared so much about the characters and loved the ending. It was a bit predictable, but that didn’t detract at all from my enjoyment. If you enjoy historical romance, this is one I can’t recommend enough.
We’ll start with my reading stats. I read 13 books in July for a total of 4,576 pages. I DNF’d 0 books.
I had 4 rereads and 9 new reads. I didn’t finish our read aloud this month, we’re about halfway through The Wizard of Oz.
I read 5 five star reads, 4 four star reads, 2 three star reads, and 2 two star reads. I had 0 one star reads.
With genres, I read 2 mystery, 2 contemporary, 6 scifi, 2 historical fiction, 1 classic, and 1 nonfiction (a self help book).
I read 0 middle grade (I’m not sure how that happened), 6 ya, and 7 adult books.
Of the books I read, 1 was from the library, 3 were eBooks, 2 were audiobooks, and 7 I owned a physical copy of.
Of the books I read, 9 were by female authors and 4 were by male authors.
I read 1 new release.
From my July TBR, I read 11/13 books I had planned.
From my 2020 TBR list, I read 3 books.
That brings me to a total of 19/36 books so far this year.
I read 0 books that are part of a series.
I bought 5 books and unhauled 2 books. I didn’t buy any ebooks and I bought one audiobook.
At the start of the month, I owned 17 books I hadn’t read yet, starting in August, I now have 16.
At the start of the month, my Kindle had 15 ebooks I hadn’t read yet on it. Starting in August, it now has 12.
At the start of the month, I had 4 audiobooks I haven’t listened to and starting in August, I still have 4 audiobooks (though one of those is different).
I didn’t keep track of how many words I wrote because I wasn’t drafting.
I worked on edits for draft 4 and made good progress. I had 7 larger revisions to do and finished 5 of them.
On my YouTube channel, I posted 12 videos. I gained 10 subscribers in July. I had 538 views and 33 hours of watch time. All of these are down from last month. I didn’t do as well posting videos and was feeling a bit discouraged with things earlier in the month. I have some ideas for things to do differently and am excited for my channel again now though, after working through that discouragement and brainstorming with my husband.
There are my stats! It was actually a really good reading month for me, though YouTube and writing didn’t do as well. Ups and downs are normal when it comes to progress and goals and I’m excited for August.
What was your bookish month like in July? What books did you read in July?
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