Monthly Wrap Up | July 2021

The month of July was… a bit of a bummer reading-wise to say the least. To be fair, that is mainly due to the fact that it was an extremely busy four weeks!

My boyfriend and I were in Florida for almost two weeks visiting his family all while I started a month-long summer course for college. I’ve also been working at a local crafts store further reinstating the fact that my “hot girl summer” dreams have become… “hot part-time job summer” (gotta love college debt!). Besides all that, I did manage to finish reading a whopping four books in total… have I mentioned that a LOT has been going on this month?? (*deep sigh*)

Here are the books I read in July!

A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas – ★★★ | | I mainly read this book so that I could have some closure with this series. I’m not the biggest fan of Sarah J. Maas’ writing style anymore (I definitely was more obsessed with it in high school), but overall this was a solid read. It’s the longest book I’ve read in a while so it literally took me over a month to read. I honestly had a really hard time rating this one, because I found myself enjoying the romance aspects, but the actual war plot left me bored lol. I think this couple has just been hyped up for SO LONG that I just wanted to read their love story and that was it.

— content warnings: depression, PTSD, assault, death, mentions of rape and abuse

Beach Read by Emily Henry – ★★★★.5 | | I absolutely adored this book! Augustus and September’s interactions were so fun to read about and I was in love with the lake town setting. Their character development was so satisfying to read about and I can’t wait to reread this again next summer! It did take me a bit to really get invested in the story at the start, but about 50 pages in… I was IN. Shoutout to Augustus Everett for adding himself to my list of favorite fictional boyfriends! ❤️

— content warnings: grief, death of parent, sexual content, cancer, infidelity, child abuse

People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry – ★★★★ | | This book reminded me of why I love rom coms so much. Poppy was such a vibrant, outgoing character and I loved her love of traveling and just the world in general. Alex was so caring and his protectiveness over Poppy made my heart grow three times larger! This was a bit slow for me, but that’s mainly because I’m not used to reading slow burns like this, but overall it was a great read! The last 100 pages had me hooked(!!) and I think the pace of this story had me all the more invested in Poppy and Alex’s relationship. Plus, I LOVED the homage to When Harry Met Sally!

— content warnings: sexual content, death of parent, bullying, grief

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata – ★★★.5 | | This was such a different read for me, and I’m honestly so happy that I picked it up! It was strange and outlandish, and had me wanting to know everything about the main character. Keiko’s obsession with the convenience store almost felt like a love story between her and her workplace, and it was so bizarre yet compelling. The main character is a woman who sometimes doesn’t know how to be human in the ways others expects her to, but it shows that success in life shouldn’t be measured by what you do. Instead, it should be measured by the happiness within it… however atypical the source of that happiness may be in Keiko’s case.

— content warnings: misogyny, ableism, sexism, toxic relationship, emotional abuse

Being a mood reader definitely makes it difficult to set structured reading goals, but going back to college next week means that my choices will definitely be… well… a bit limited. I can only bring a couple of books with me, and by couple I mean at least twenty because I’m insane. My goals for August are to try and at least consistently read morning and night. I think it will be beneficial to have set moments of reading in the day, especially as I get back to a somewhat busy college schedule.

The books I will be reading will probably consist of many romances due to the fact that they are easier to read when I’m already deep in schoolwork. I’ll bring a few fantasies and adult fiction with me, but rom coms all the way for the next few months (whoop! whoop!).

I do want to try and push myself before I go back to school to partake in an individual 24 hour readathon, just so I can knock out some higher priority books before I go back. Plus, I haven’t done one is years so I think it’s about time! 😊

Besides bookish endeavors, here are some things I’ve currently been obsessed with!

• Why Women Kill – This show is absolutely brilliant and extremely underrated! I binge watched the first season last month and just finished the second season last week! It’s about women throughout all different times in history being brought to the brink of madness, and shows what it takes for them to kill. I believe that it is extremely underrated, so if you have the time I would definitely recommend giving it a try!
• The Bachelorette – Normally I don’t care too much about this show, but this season has me invested!!
• Big Brother – My family has always been huge fans of this show! The past few seasons have been super boring for me, but the casting this season was 10/10 so it is super entertaining!
• Booktubers:
  • allyvee – I am OBSESSED with Ally’s videos! She is hilarious and her editing is so aesthetically pleasing. Her content is so good that I even joined her patreon, and now I’m in her book club (whoop!).
  • Steph Bohrer – Steph’s videos are always so fun, and she gives out the BEST romance recs! Watching her videos are a bit dangerous because I immediately add them to my bookstore shopping list haha 😊

Thank you so much for reading! How was your July and what books did you pick up?

Have you read any of the books I mentioned? Let’s chat! 💕