July 2020 Wrap Up

Every time I do these wrap up posts, I feel like I barely read anything, but then I compile it together and I shock myself. This month I read 11 books, which is about the same as last month, although two of them were graphic novels so they weren’t as time consuming as the other longer or more wordy novels. I have linked all reviews for these books in the title, so if you’d like to see my thoughts, feel free to click the link and check them out!

Book I Read:

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Crave by Tracy Wolff

Rating: 5 // 5 stars

Genre: YA Fantasy

Goodreads

 

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Warmaidens by Kelly Coon

Genre: YA Fantasy

Rating: 3.5 // 5 stars

Goodreads

 

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Wicked As You Wish by Rin Chupeco

Genre: YA Fantasy

Rating: 4 // 5 stars

Goodreads

 

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North and South by Gene Luen Yang, etc

Genre: YA Fantasy (Graphic Novels)

Rating: 5 // 5 stars

Goodreads

 

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Imbalance by Faith Erin Hicks, etc

Genre: YA Fantasy (Graphic Novels)

Rating: 5 // 5 stars

Goodreads

 

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A Wicked Magic by Sasha Laurens

Genre: YA Fantasy

Rating: 4 // 5 stars

Goodreads

 

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Splinters of Scarlet by Emily Bain Murphy

Genre: YA Historical Fantasy

Rating: 4.5 // 5 stars

Goodreads

 

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The City of Brass by S. A. Chakraborty

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: 5 // 5 stars

Goodreads

 

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The Shadows Between Us by Tricia Levenseller

Genre: YA Fantasy

Rating: 5 // 5 stars

Goodreads

 

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Ignite the Sun by Hanna Howard

Genre: YA Fantasy

Rating: 3.5 // 5 stars

Goodreads

 

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Steel Tide by Natalie C. Parker

Genre: YA Fantasy

Rating: 4 // 5 stars

Goodreads

 

I’m hoping to have a good reading month for August, especially since I have to focus on a lot of ARCs I received through NetGalley. While I wasn’t intentionally trying to do the ARC August Readathon (hosted by Octavia and Shelly @ Read. Sleep. Repeat.) I basically have only ARCs on my TBR that I need to read and review, so I guess I’m participating!

If you want to see what my August TBR is, check out my TBR post here.

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August 2020 TBR

I have a very optimistic TBR for August. Three of these books I need to read in order to read the sequels, which either come out in September. The other eight books are books that come out in August/September that I need to read. And these aren’t even all of the September releases. I left three end of September releases for later and I’ll just have to read and get through at the beginning of next month.

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I don’t know if I’ve had a TBR of more than nine books before, so this should be interesting. The last three can always be read beginning of September if it comes down to that, but I want to try and get these read as soon as possible.

I ended up with a longer TBR for August due to one thing – the Penguin Teen Influencer program. I signed up and got in (yay!) but when I requested the books I wanted, I didn’t think I would get ALL of them. I requested three books for each month, August, September, and October. And in one afternoon received six of those nine books in my inbox. It was awesome yet terrifying.

See, I’m used to requesting more than normal because I’m usually declined for like 80-90% of them, so I didn’t expect to have six additional books fall into my lap. Plus I received Legendborn from the publisher and won Traitor in a giveaway. Ha ha, I’m freaking out.

What’s your August TBR looking like?

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June 2020 Wrap Up

Going into this month, I honestly didn’t expect to get through any books. With moving, and work, and other stuff going on I expected to maybe read one or two books, but I went way beyond that.

I loved a lot of the books I read this month and I’m really excited for what I’m reading next month too! I ended up reading 2 of the books I planned to read in July (oops) so I guess I’m on track.

Here’s everything I’ve read in the month of June.

Books I read:

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Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko

Genre: YA Fantasy

Rating: 4 // 5 stars

Goodreads

 

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Blood Moon by Lucy Cuthew

Genre: YA Fiction

Rating: 5 // 5 stars

Goodreads

 

 

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Burn Our Bodies Down by Rory Power

Genre: YA Fiction/Thriller/Horror

Rating: 4 // 5 stars

Goodreads

 

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Bloodleaf by Crystal Smith

Genre: YA Fantasy

Rating: 5 // 5 stars

Goodreads

 

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Gravemaidens by Kelly Coon

Genre: YA Fantasy

Rating: 4 // 5 stars

Goodreads

 

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Greythorne by Crystal Smith

Genre: YA Fantasy

Rating: 5 // 5 stars

Goodreads

 

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The Deck of Omens by Christine Lynn Herman

Genre: YA Fantasy/Paranormal

Rating: 4.5 // 5 stars

Goodreads

 

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Heir of Ashes by Jina S. Bazzar

Genre: Adult Fantasy/Urban Fantasy

Rating: N/A

Goodreads

 

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Aurora Burning by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Genre: YA Science Fiction/Fantasy

Rating: 5 // 5 stars

Goodreads

 

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Mayhem by Estelle Laure

Genre: YA Contemporary Fantasy

Rating: 3.5 // 5 stars

Goodreads

 

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They Wish They Were Us by Jessica Goodman

Genre: YA Mystery/Thriller

Rating: 4 // 5 stars

Goodreads

 

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Avatar: The Promise by Gene Luen Yang . . .

Genre: YA Fantasy/Graphic Novels

Rating: 5 // 5 stars

Goodreads

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Avatar: The Search by Gene Luen Yang . . .

Genre: YA Fantasy/Graphic Novels

Rating: 5 // 5 stars

Goodreads

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Avatar: The Rift by Gene Luen Yang . . .

Genre: YA Fantasy/Graphic Novels

Rating: 5 // 5 stars

Goodreads

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Avatar: Smoke and Shadow by Gene Luen Yang . . .

Genre: YA Fantasy/Graphic Novels

Rating: 5 // 5 stars

Goodreads

It was so nice to be able to FINALLY read the Avatar comics. I love Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra, so to be able to read the comics at last, it makes me so happy. Only two more books before they’re done, but my heart is full. After my rewatch of Korra, I’ll probably end up reading those comics too!

What are some books you read this month? Any books you’re excited to read in July?

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May 2020 Mid-Month Update

May has been a very good month so far for my TBR! I’ve currently read 7/10 books I wanted to read this month, which is insane for me. Because I’ve been reading so much I decided to add some extra books to my TBR. We’ll see if I can actually get through all of them this month, but I have hope I’ll get through most!

I also wanted to provide an update – because I have been reading more and have more content, I am going to try posting five times a week, Monday through Friday. This is a change from my normal blogging timeline, but I wanted to give it a try. If it doesn’t work, I’m going to go back to my typical posting schedule, but if I can maintain it, then we’re heading towards five days a week!

What I read

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For the books I’ve read, I blew through some of them it wasn’t even funny. I’ve read two duologies, The Bone Charmer/The Bone Thief  by Breeana Shields and The Storm Crow/The Crow Rider by Kalyn Josephson so far and will have finished another duology by the end of the month! Reviews will be up for all of these books at some point in the coming days. After reading Forest of Souls (the eARC), I realized I probably should have waited to read and review it. I received a physical ARC of the book this past Saturday and I think I’m going to do a reread of the physical book to make sure my thoughts are in order. I find that sometimes I’ll rate a book differently based on format (especially for ARCs) and I really want to give this book a fair chance, especially since it has huge Wicked Saints vibes and there were moments I was freaking out about. So, review for that may be delayed. But for the most part, I adored all of these books and I can’t wait for you to read my thoughts on them!

What I’m reading

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I’m currently almost finished with Thorn by Intisar Khanani and it is so good! I’m buddy reading this book with my friend Grace and I’m really enjoying it. It’s a Goose Girl retelling, which I’ve never read, but I like it! Race the Sands by Sarah Beth Durst is a bit of a struggle. It’s not a bad book, but I am definitely not in the mood to read it right now – maybe I’ll have to stick it back on the TBR pile for a while. I started reading The Boundless and I am almost 50% through. I wanted to make sure I had enough time to read for the blog tour and have my post ready for June. So far, I’m really liking the sequel and can’t wait to see what happens next. I know that this is a duology, so I’m wondering who Selah is going to end up with, if she ends up with anyone, and if she’s going to be able to get home to her father soon. There are so many unanswered questions!

What I plan to read

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I’ve added five books to my TBR (not including the two I added and I am currently reading) since I’m getting through books very quickly. I haven’t read this much since January 2019 when I read almost twenty books in the month. It was awesome! I’m really happy I get to read books that have been on my TBR for forever, as well as new books for review or for fun. I managed to win a copy of Empire of Gold (City of Brass #3) from Goodreads too and now I have to read the other two books. Why did I enter the giveaway when I hadn’t read the other two books? – because I never win giveaways so I didn’t think it would happen.

But here we are! And now I have motivation to read the first book, The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty. I actually have a signed copy that I received for free at BookCon 2018 as part of the VIP package. I got City of Brass and The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang – which I haven’t read either yet, though I’ve heard they are AMAZING!

So here is my mid-month update! I’ve currently read 7 seven books, I am reading 3 books, and I want to read 7 books. I’m sure I won’t get to all of them, but it’s good to have strong goals, right?

How is your TBR reading going? Any books that surprised you?

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Writing Update #2

It has been a while since I’ve done a writing update so I thought I would let you know how my manuscript is going!

Writing GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

First off, I managed to get to 90 pages/26,000 words before I realized that the whole thing had to be scraped! It was devastating but also very needed. The story idea I had wasn’t working out on the page and it might be better as a middle grade, but I’m not ready to write that story just yet. I decided to scrap the thing and just rewrite it. So no more mermaids, hello witches!

The actual writing for it is between older YA and adult – I’m not quite sure where it lands yet. I think it’s going to hit upper YA/NA territory, but I’m over 25,000 words into it, so we’ll see!

For this process, I decided to save the original draft (NEVER DELETE ANYTHING!) and copy the draft into a new document. As I’m writing, I’m going chapter by chapters, reading through what I have and salvaging what I can. The beginning has all been deleted. There was nothing there I could keep, but the more middle parts might be saved depending on where this book goes.

hiding Blank Template - Imgflip

So far, my manuscript word count is at 25,021 words or 76 pages. Which I wrote in a week and a half and still writing. I would be at a higher word count, but Friday and Saturday were not good writing days. I wrote a little bit on those days, but I think it was maybe 1200 words total for the two days. I started rewriting this draft two weeks ago and I’m proud of what I’ve done so far!

My writing process is pretty much a pantser – I have a general plot line I want to follow, but my characters are holding the reins on this one and I’m just following their story! I’ve been writing about a chapter a day, with each chapter being at least 5-6 pages long. Some are shorter, some are longer, but that’s the average for this draft. I’m hoping to hit at least 100,000 words for this draft, but we’ll see if it gets there. So far, I have high hopes that this will be a solid, long draft that I can work some magic into!

My goal for next week is to add at least another 15,000 words to the draft and really get this story going. When I opened my draft for the first time in a while, I was at 23,000 words. I added about 3,000 and then realized it all had to go! So fingers crossed I can get to 40,000 by the end of the week!

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