July Wrap-Up + August Reading Month (2018)

The wrap-up is early this month as well (I tend to do it on the first Saturday of the next calendar month, for those of you unfamiliar with my posting schedule) because I have an exciting post lined up for next Saturday. I had a very good reading month this time around because I’ve been a bit more free lately. I participated in a grand total of 3 readathons already and have squeezed in a fourth that begins on 30th July. Needless to say, I need to get back to my reading because I’ve over-committed as usual, so let’s get straight to the post!

I’ve already finished a total of 8 books this month. Most of them were amazing, peppered with a couple of disappointing reads. I had started The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner via audio in June for the Marvel-A-Thon but only managed to complete it in July. It set the tone for the rest of the month as I really enjoyed it and desperately want to finish the rest of the series as soon as I can. The next two books I picked up were for the IndianLitReadathon that I hosted with my blogging friends Aditi, Charvi and Shruti. I could only finish The House of Kanooru by Kuvempu during the readathon and listened to the audiobook for The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy over the next week. While I loved the former (review here), the latter was not really my cup of tea and I thought it was only average.

From then on I had to get to all the ARCs that I received for review via NetGalley or from publishers/authors. The first ARC I completed was It’s a Question of Space by Clayton C. Anderson (review here). After that, it was time to start the books on my OWLs Readathon TBR. I was most excited for Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik, which lived up to my high expectations for it, although it took me a while to finish it. I got through the next two quickly. The first was The Last of the Firedrakes by Farah Oomerbhoy, which was filled with clichés and I would have DNF-ed if only it wasn’t a review copy. The second was The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas, which combined sci-fi and mystery so well that it proved to be almost unputdownable and I loved it. I took a slight unplanned deviation from my July TBR and made short work of The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie over the previous weekend. The plot was superb and had me guessing till the end, so this book definitely lived up to what one would expect from the Queen of Crime.

• Reached 350+ followers on the blog, 400+ on Twitter and almost 250 on Instagram. Hit 1000+ views already this month. Thanks a lot for helping me achieve these milestones!
• IndianLitReadathon turned out better than expected and we had so much fun hosting it. Thanks to everyone who supported and encouraged us!
• Posted consistently on Instagram for the whole month and planned out most of them in advance – a rather personal achievement as I’ve struggled with consistency till now.
• Huge book haul – 10 physical books, 2 Kindle e-books and 1 pre-order!
• New favourite author on Twitter – Matt Haig for his tweets about mental health

• Shealea @ That Bookshelf Bitch put together a list of resources for getting books legally for very cheap prices or free of cost, which I want to boost as much as possible because it’s so important to combat book piracy!
• Neha @ BiblioNyan discusses why hyped books put her off and she’s such an inspiration for me that I just want to promote her posts all day, every day.
• Aimee @ Aimee, Always throws us bloggers a lifeline by creating a guide to organize and schedule blog posts, which also has an awesome free resource!

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• The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas (August 1st) – an awesome combination of sci-fi and murder mystery with wonderful diverse representation
• Fresh Ink edited by Lamar Giles (August 14th) – an anthology with stories by 13 diverse authors including stalwarts of the YA community like Nicola Yoon and Jason Reynolds
• Seafire by Natalie C. Parker (August 28th) – an exciting voyage with an all-female crew set out to overthrow the patriarchy
• Mirage by Somaiya Daud (August 28th) – one of the most anticipated YA releases in the second part of the year, it promises adventures with body doubles and a side of feminism
• Sea Prayer by Khaled Hosseini (August 31st) – composed in the form of a letter, from a father to his son, it discussed the current refugee crisis and is inspired by the story of Alan Kurdi

I teased about a fourth readathon that I’m taking part in, which is the BookTube-A-Thon, starting from July 30th to 5th August. Obviously I don’t have a BookTube channel (yet), so I’ll just be doing the reading challenges. These are so much fun and I have a lot of appreciation for Ariel Bisett, who is the host and comes up with cool challenges each time.

1. Let a coin toss decide the book you’re going to read – I had a choice between Revenge to the Tennth Power by Jack Chaucer and Jozi Flash (an anthology), which the former won.
2. Read a book about something you want to do – For this I chose A Thousnad Beginnings and Endings, a short story anthology because writing stories based on the mythology and folklore I grew up with is one of my biggest goals
3. Read and watch a book to movie adaptation – Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli fits this perfectly and I think Charvi would kill me if I had put any other book here instead
4. Read a book with green on the cover – A Thousand Beginnings and Endings has green font, so it doubles up for this challenge as well
5. Read a book while wearing the same hat the whole time – I hope that Simon vs will be a quick read, so I’m going to use it for this challenge too
6. Read a book with a beautiful spine – The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw has the most gorgeous cover I’ve encountered in recent times and an equally stunning spine
7. Read 7 books – I’m going to be including the loser of the coin toss, Jozi Flash, because I feel bad for it and also because I really need to read it, Everless by Sara Holland and Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire

I’m also taking part in the N.E.W.T.s Readathon organized by the lovely person over on the Book Roast channel. Some of the books I’ve chosen for the BookTube-A-Thon overlap with my N.E.W.T.s readathon TBR because it’s quite exhausting to try and read 17 books in a month and I don’t think I can achieve that. I’m not sure which of the books I will get to in this TBR either but I’m definitely trying for all of them as I like to push myself. Most of these books are physical ones that I own as I’m trying to cut down my physical TBR.

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How was the July reading month for you? What readathons have you taken part in this year? What are you looking forward to the most in August? Let me know in the comments section below.