July Wrap-Up

Click to listen! Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Hello Hello! How are you?

Well, July is officially over, I was trying to forget it was already August over the weekend but I failed miserably haha. I am going to use this week to get properly organised, get some blogging done, catch up with some posts and READ (because I need to have one last great reading month before university starts up again in September).

I didn’t make my Goodreads goal in July, but I know that I will make it in the next couple of days and I’m very excited to see how many extra books I can read on top of that. I didn’t have the best month in July, and I didn’t manage to read as many books as I would have liked, but all things considered, it’s still a fair number.

If you would like to check out my July TBR, you can find it here. And in July, I was able to read a total of 11 books. It wasn’t the best month and I did have a few duds, but I’m quite happy anyway.

BOOKS READ

My Favourite Book of the Month

The Ship of Shadows by Maria Kuzniar – 5 stars

I read this book for the blog tour I took part in hosted by Dave from @The_WriteReads, and as soon as I opened this book and started reading, I was completely enchanted by this world. I love reading middle grade fantasy, and this was a great one for me. It has pirates, some very strong female characters, a magical ship with little shadows that follow people, cake, adventure, and a treasure hunt. If that doesn’t sound good to you, I don’t know what does! I highly recommend, and you can read my gushing review for it here and my interview with Maria here.

June Books

May Day (#1 The Seekers) by Josie Jaffrey – 4 stars

I was so kindly sent an ARC of this book by Josie Jaffrey, I have to admit that as soon as I saw her email about requesting ARCs and the tagline on her website with “Vampires are Back”, I was totally sold! I read Killian’s Dead, the little short story in this series first and it really helped for reading the book afterwards as you learn some important information about Jack, Killian, Wintra and their past. This was such a different book, it had a lot going for it, a lot of vampire angst, some romance, a big mystery, and it was very fun. You can find my mini-review of Killian’s Dead and my full review of May Day here.

The Bone Jar by S.W. Kane – 4.5 stars

I read this book for a blog tour, and it was one of those books that even though it didn’t sound 100% my cup of tea, I really wanted to give it a go, and I wasn’t disappointed. I like mysteries, and this one with the police investigation was just what I like, even though a bit more forensic work would have pushed my rating to 5-stars (I know I’m strange and morbid like that). This was very good, I enjoyed it and there were definitely quite a few plot twists and revelations right at the end. I really liked that it was set in an abandoned asylum because we got an insight into that too. You can find my full review of it here.

In the Neighborhood of True by Susan Kaplan Carlton – 4 stars

I was really lucky to have been invited on this blog tour by Algonquin Young Readers, and it was my first ever YA historical fiction. This book is set at the end of the 1950s, in the aftermath of WWII and hatred for Jews and anyone different is rife in America, especially in this city where Christianity, gorgeous and good-mannered debutantes and growing up as a young Jewish girl, trying to hide that part of her. You can read my review of it here.

Knightmare Arcanist (#1 Frith Chronicles) by Shami Stovall – 4 stars

This was one of my favourite books this month, I read it for the blog tour organised by Dave from @The_WriteReads, and as always with his tours, this book was GREAT! It was so different, I was really drawn to this world where young people can bind themselves to mythical creatures like phoenixes and become Arcanists and wield magic. This has a great mission and adventure type feel, it’s great fantasy with cool characters and an intriguing world, I can’t wait for the next instalment of this book. You can read my review of it here.

City of Ashes (#2 The Mortal Instruments) by Cassandra Clare – 3.5 stars

Fiona from Fi’s Bibliofiles and I read this book for our Shadowhunter reading mission, and a lot of things happened. We both fairly enjoyed it but found it a bit slow and dragging. We had a fun time talking about it and writing our posts though, if you are interested, you can read my mini-review along with Fiona’s answers to our questions, and don’t forget to check out Fiona’s post with her mini-review and my answers to the questions!

Wolf: A Story of Hate by Zeev Scheinwald and Ella Scheinwald – 5 stars

A few months ago, I read a nonfiction Holocaust memoir for a blog tour and Liesbeth from Amsterdam Publishers was kind enough to reach out to me after I posted my review and ask me if I wanted to read more of the books. This was my 3^rd Amsterdam Publishers book, and although it’s very graphic, brutal, raw and quite hard to read, I think it was my favourite so far. It goes over a lot of details that many of us have never heard about, and I think that everyone needs to know that the “official version” isn’t the only one, the victims have their own stories too, it was a great book for explaining this point and you can read my review of it here.

The Colonel and the Bee by Patrick Canning – 3 stars

I received this ARC from BookSirens in exchange for an honest review, and unfortunately, I wasn’t feeling great at the time I read it, which probably didn’t help my opinion of it as it dragged quite a bit and was a bit too faffy at times for my liking. I did enjoy it more towards the end and I do think it is worth the read as the characters are fun and eccentric and it has a great plot, but it just wasn’t totally my thing! You can read my review of it here.

The Jumbies (#1) by Tracey Baptiste – 4 stars

Ohhhh, now this one was good! I read The Jumbies as one of the Middle Grade Marvels Book Club picks for July. I’m actually very happy that I found and nominated this one (so glad it also won the poll) because I think we all enjoyed it so much. This is a book about a young girl on a Caribbean island, surrounded in folklore about Jumbies – weird creepy creatures. It was my first experience of Caribbean myths and I personally adored it so much, it was great and I highly recommend for any age. If you want to find out more, head over to my review here.

Thomas Wildus and the Book of Sorrows (#1 The Elandrian Chronicles) by J.M. Bergen – 2.5 stars

Unfortunately, this was another flop this month. Our second  BOTM for the July Middle Grade Marvels chat and I had such high expectations that just fell flat. I can see why people would enjoy this, but for me, it didn’t work. It dragged, it was boring, the mother-son relationship was creepy and cringey to me, the characters were written strangely for their age, yeah overall, I was not a fan. I’m not going to be writing a review for it on my blog, but I did write a small one on Goodreads if you are interested, and you can read it here.

City of Glass (#3 The Mortal Instruments) by Cassandra Clare – 4 stars

Ohhhhh, this was another great book and I’m so glad that I finished the month with it! Fiona and I were immediately hooked by this third instalment of The Mortal Instruments, it got going right from the start, was fast-paced, action-packed, was quite emotional, had great plot twists and some shocking/relieving revelations. I enjoyed it so much more than the previous two and I think it’s fair to say that I have now caught the Cassandra Clare bug, I’m looking forward to the next books in this world! You can read my mini-review and Fiona’s thoughts here, and her mini-review and my thoughts here.

So, I maybe didn’t have the best month for ratings as some books really flopped, others were just average and only two were great, but I’m quite happy and again, I’m loving the diversity in genres I’m able to read lately!

You’ve heard this before, I haven’t finished any Hype-A-Thon books again, drat!!! But, Noly and I have nearly finished The Hobbit, so at least that will be one book more than previous months aha, please send us good luck wishes and motivational vibes (especially to Noly because she has injured her back really bad and is in a lot of pain).

July Reading Stats

Number of books: 11

Number of pages: 3,734

Star ratings:

2.5 stars: 1 book

3 stars: 1 book

3.5 stars: 1 book

4 stars: 5 books

4.5 stars: 1 book

5 stars: 2 books

Average rating: 3.95⭐

Genres: 1 nonfiction Holocaust memoir, 1 science-fiction steampunk, 3 MG fantasies, 2 YA paranormal fantasies, 1 paranormal fantasy, 1 fantasy, 1 mystery and 1 YA historical fiction.

That’s all for now, I’m happy-ish with this month and really excited for August because I have some AMAZING books on the list, I’ve already started a few and enjoying them so far. Tell me all about the books you read in July and what you’ve got planned for August! See you soon, stay safe,

Ellie xx