August Wrap-Up

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Hello Hello! How are you?

It’s the first day of September and I can’t really believe it, this year is just crazy. I’m going back to university officially next Monday, I have a meeting this Friday and I’m just really looking forward to this new year, especially as I’m going to be studying something totally different to my degree I just got. I also spent the whole afternoon yesterday putting all my unread books on the bookshelf, and I’m still not 100% happy with it and could just move books around forever, but I’ve got stuff to do aha!

In August, I reached my 2020 Goodreads reading goal of 100 books, I’m now currently at 111 books read this year, and it will be 112 right after this post goes live! However, I miserably failed the Trope-ical Readathon and out of the 16 books on that TBR, I only managed to read 6 of them.

I did have a good reading month in August though, and I had a very ambitious August TBR, so I suppose I didn’t do too bad. I finished a total of 14 books in August, I’m quite proud of that, so keep reading to find out what I read and what I thought of each book!

BOOKS READ

My Favourite Books of the Month

Thorn by Intisar Khanani – 4.5 stars

Although this book didn’t get a 5-star rating from me, I absolutely had to include it as a favourite of the month. I read this book with Candyce and we both loved it. It is a retelling of the Goose Girl tale, I went in fairly blind as I wanted to experience it all from the book and I was so hooked by this story, this world, the characters, it was just really unique and very fun, I especially loved the relationships and the hint of magic we got. I’m looking forward to reading book 2 when it releases, I’m sure there is still so much more to know. You can read my full review here.

The Beast and the Bethany by Jack Meggitt-Phillips – 5 stars

This book had to make the list, it was amazing! Another great book for a blog tour organised by Dave from @The_WriteReads, by now we all know the books on his tours are great! This was a fairly dark, funny, meaningful middle grade fantasy novel, the first book in a series. It had hints of Lemony Snicket, it was witty, it had some great jokes, it also had some extremely important messages and lessons for children and adults alike and I just adored it. The replies by the author to our posts were also amazing and I just thought this tour was fantastic! You can read my review of this book here. You can also read the interview I did with Jack here.

June Books

The Mysterious Affair at Styles (#1) by Agatha Christie – 3.5 stars

My first ever time reading an Agatha Christie book and I was quite impressed. I have watched Christie movies for years and know many of the mysteries, but I’ve been putting off reading them because I needed to start with the first book she wrote (I can’t read them out of order or my brain hates me for it), and I was a bit afraid that it was going to be a bit too la-di-da for me if you know what I mean. I enjoyed it though, and I’m looking forward to the next book once I get my hands on a copy. You can find out all my thoughts here.

More than Marmalade: Michael Bond and the Story of Paddington Bear by Rosanne Tolin – 4.5 stars

This was one of my author requests for the month of August and I was so glad that I accepted it because it was great, nostalgic, brought a tear to my eye, made me laugh and smile and remember my childhood. If you loved Paddington Bear as a child or still do (don’t worry, I don’t judge, I still love Eeyore), and you want to know more about the man who created him and how he changed the world, then you need to read this book, just don’t forget to bring a snack, preferably a marmalade sandwich. You can find all my thoughts in my review!

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien – 3.5 stars

Yay!! We finally did it! Noly and I managed to finish The Hobbit this month and I was so happy about it because we’ve been reading it for 3 months! This was one of the Hype-A-Thon Readathon picks for June, we chose it for #JourneyJune and it definitely fit the prompt! I think we both did enjoy it, it was a bit long-winded, there was a lot of waffle and meaningless details, but overall the adventure was great and I am very much looking forward to finally picking up the Lord of the Rings books soon. You can read my thoughts here.

Tweet Cute by Emma Lord – 4.5 stars

I picked this book as one of my Trope-ical Readathon books, and I don’t think I would have gotten to it for a while if I hadn’t participated in this readathon, that’s why I love readathons though. I don’t honestly read that many romance or contemporary books as they aren’t really my thing, but I will read the odd one if it really takes my fancy, and this book definitely did. It was funny, sweet, cute and there is so much food in this book, I was so hungry reading it. If you’re looking for a quick and easy, funny and cute book, then this is the one for you, and you can find out why in my review!

The Lightning Thief (#1) by Rick Riordan – 4 stars

I buddy read this book with Candyce and we both enjoyed it! This was our first buddy-read of the month, we’ve been loving reading together lately! I had seen this film a few years ago and had the book on my shelves for just as long, I’m so glad I got to it. It really isn’t an exact match to the film, that’s why I really enjoyed it because it took me by surprise. I love Greek gods, myths and adventure stories, it was so fun and I can’t wait to get my hands on the next book in the series. You can read my full review of this book here.

Shadow City by Anna Mocikat – 3 stars

This wasn’t my favourite book of the month, unfortunately. I read this because I really, really liked this author’s other book, Behind Blue Eyes, and she kindly reached out to me and sent me this book to review. I think my issue with it was a) the chapters were just so incredibly long and it made me want to give up, b) there were quite a few typos and things that could have been edited to make it better and c) there was just too many creatures and too much going on for me to appreciate it all. I did enjoy it, but I’m sure I would have enjoyed it more had it been a bit better executed. You can read my thoughts on it here.

Body Talk: 37 Voices Explore Our Radical Anatomy edited by Kelly Jensen – 5 stars

This was a blog tour for Algonquin Young Readers and I loved it! As someone with a few chronic illnesses and body confidence issues, it was the perfect book for me and I loved it from start to finish. It’s about the body, learning to accept it, being kind to it and nursing it back to health when we push it too far, and so many other amazing things we need to know about our bodies and how to love it. I highly recommend this book to everyone, it was amazing and you can read all my raving in-depth about it here.

Clockwork Angel (#1) by Cassandra Clare – 4 stars

Fiona and I are continuing the Shadowhunter mission and our book for August was Clockwork Angel. This was so much better than the first two books we read during our mission, we just jumped into this one, it had better pacing, a better plot, and it was much more intriguing to me personally. Even though it was slow again around the middle of the book, it ended on a cliff-hanger and I’m so annoyed at it, I am going to dive into the next book this afternoon or tomorrow and I can’t wait to see what’s going on! You can read my mini-review and Fiona’s thoughts on Clockwork Angel here, or Fiona’s mini-review and my thoughts on it here.

The Wicked King (#2) by Holly Black – 4 stars

I read The Cruel Prince at the start of the year and I was quite underwhelmed, to say the least, I just didn’t get the hype and it still enjoyed it, but it wasn’t what I was expecting. I decided to continue the series though and I did end up liking the second book better. However, I want more politics and I want to understand the hype around Jude and Cardan’s relationship because I don’t see it. I did enjoy the whole plot and the characters more, so that’s a bonus, and I’ll be getting my full review of it up in the next weeks!

Small Spaces (#1) by Katherine Arden – 4 stars

We read Small Spaces as the BOTM for the Middle Grade Marvels book club and we LOVED IT. I don’t think many of us made it to the end of the scheduled discussion because we had all finished it beforehand. I tried to hold off and read the sections every week, but it was getting so good, so I just finished it in one go aha! This is spooky, and creepy, and has an amazing atmosphere, it has a great plot and even though the characters bugged me, I loved what happened and the end even made me tear-up a bit. I love middle grade, and this book is going on the recommendations list, I will be getting the review up for it soon!

Jackaby (#1) by William Ritter – 4 stars

Candyce and I decided to buddy read a third book this month, it wasn’t on my TBR for August, but I’m so glad I picked it up as I loved it. This book is everything I love, and it makes me so happy to find a book with a mix of my favourite things. It had fantasy and mystery and historical fiction, a great plot, setting and atmosphere, great main characters who were witty, fun, intelligent and Jackaby is the spitting image of Sherlock from Elementary. It reminds me of Charmed, Supernatural and Elementary and now I want to binge all those series again. I highly, highly, highly recommend! Candyce and I are going to be reading the next book together soon, and stay tuned for this review which will go up in a few weeks as well!

The Book of Sam by Rob Shapiro – 2 stars

And finally, my last August Netgalley book. Sadly, this one let me down. I had high hopes, the blurb sounded good and I was ready to jump in and enjoy it, but it just flopped a bit I’m afraid. It wasn’t a bad book, it was just very boring to me, the characters were insufferable, the plot was clunky and although things happened, it felt like nothing actually moved forward, I don’t know, it was one of those strange books I suppose. Yeah, not a fan, unfortunately, and I won’t be writing a review on my blog.

I read some really good books this month, one dud and a few good-not-great ones, overall, I’m quite proud of this month. The last book was just not my thing at all, but I easily forgot it once I started The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, I’m totally hooked and I’m going to finish it right after I finish this post!

This month I was able to finish one Hype-A-Thon book, yay!! Noly and I are going easy in September and we’ve only got one book for the Hype-A-Thon that you can read all about here, and one book for Middle Grade Marvels that you can read all about here. If you are curious about the other books I’m going to be reading in September, you can find my TBR post here.

Trope-ical Readathon Wrap-Up

I didn’t do amazing for this readathon, unfortunately, and I’m a bit disappointed with myself, but I couldn’t really help it, and I was overly ambitious when I made the TBR that you can find here. I thought I would just quickly go over the prompts I completed and which books I read for them.

I was part of team Science Fiction and Fantasy for this readathon, I didn’t even manage to get to the team book, but I did read a total of 6 books for the readathon.

🌴 Team Challenge: “Magical Academy” trope completed with The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan.

🌴 “Strange Names” trope completed with Tweet Cute by Emma Lord.

🌴 “Artificial Intelligence” trope (alternative prompt was to read an ebook) completed with Shadow City by Anna Mocikat.

🌴 “Enemies to Lovers/Friends” trope completed with The Wicked King by Holly Black.

🌴 “The New Kid in Town” trope (alternative prompt was to read a genre you don’t usually red) completed with More Than Marmalade by Rosanne Tolin.

🌴 “Retelling” trope completed with Thorn by Intisar Khanani.

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August Reading Stats

Number of books: 14

Number of pages: 4,428

Star ratings:

2 stars: 1 book

3 stars: 1 book

3.5 stars: 2 book

4 stars: 5 books

4.5 stars: 3 book

5 stars: 2 books

Average rating: 3.96⭐

Genres: 1 classic mystery, 1 nonfiction biography, 1 classic fantasy, 1 YA romance, 1 post-apocalyptic fantasy, 1 nonfiction anthology, 5 YA fantasies, 1 YA fantasy mystery historical fiction, 1 middle grade horror and 1 middle grade fantasy.

That’s all for now, quite a good month and I’m excited for the September books. Obviously, as I’m going back to university I’m going to be a bit easy on myself and I’ll only have about 3 or 4 posts up a week, but I’m really looking forward to this new adventure!! Tell me all about your August reads in the comments!

See you soon, stay safe,

Ellie xx