July Reading Post

It has been a very interesting month for my reading. I finally hit the wall and pulled back quite a bit on my listening of audio books, which has dropped the number of books I have finished this month by quite a lot. I finished 26 stories in July, which makes it the second smallest number of books finished in a month for this year. Given that I am about to start being trained in a new job at work, I know this number will probably stay low like this. That said, 26 books is still nothing to sneer at. 

In addition, I only managed to finish three more series, which ties for the smallest amount of series finished in a month. I think this is mostly due to the fact that I've gotten through a lot of the series I can finish at this point, and am struggling to get to the ones I can finish now. There was one book I had to DNF that I will go back to because it is the final book of the series, but I'm not sure when I'll get back to it. It was a very dark book, and I don't think I could handle reading it, so it will have to wait until I can get a copy of the Audio book that is not from Audible, because I refuse to use that service. Worse, that book was one of four I DNFd in July, which is the largest number of DNFs so far this year in a month. But two of those four are likely to be picked back up later, when I am in a different headspace, or with different access to them. I will say that this now brings my DNFs to more than one book DNF'd per month. But given how previous months have gone, I think that will be fine. 

And despite all of this? I read some of my favorite books of the year, so stay tuned for that!

So stats for the month. In July, I finished 26 books. The Audience of those books, 17 were YA, one was New Adult, and eight were Adult. For format, nine were EBooks, one was Physical, and 15 were Audio. Five of the books I read were written by Male authors, and 22 were written by female authors. Again, the split between Male and Female main characters was almost even as many of the books had both Male and Female main characters. Overall, I had 17 books with Male main characters, and 18 with Female main characters. I also managed to read 15 with LGBTQ major characters, and eight with non-white main characters. 

As I said last month, I have redone the way I am determining Genre for what I read. I'm using the way they're listed on the two sites I keep track of my reading on, which has lead to a new Genre for this month. My top three Genres this month are Romance, Fantasy, and Contemporary. I believe I have been reading Contemporary books before this, but since I never tracked it, I don't have a specific number to point to. However, since doing this new version of tracking, I discovered just how much it comes up, so that may come up more as time goes on. I will be tinkering how I track them a bit more, but I do think this version is a little more "honest" when it comes to Genre, since before, it was mostly opinion based for me, especially when it came to Historical and Romance. I did notice that the amount of Genres for books generally went down, so I ended up only with one or two Genres per book, when I used to have as many as five or more. I do think it was a good experiment, since it's making me realize I read things other than what I think I do.

The newest book I read in July was actually a tie, as I read two separate books that came out on July 6th of this year. The first was The Queen Will Betray You by Sarah Henning, which was the second book in the Kingdoms of Sand and Sky series, which is inspired by the story of the Princess Bride, with Buttercup and Wesley's roles being switched. It's a fun story, though this was not as great as the first, I think, and I'm not sure where it will go from the ending of this book, though I will be picking it up when it comes out next year. Then I managed to get the final book in the Simon Snow Series by Rainbow Rowell, Any Way the Wind Blows, which was sweet and lovely, and I love the way it ended. Both are well worth picking up if you have read the previous books.

The oldest book I read was Grave Peril by Jim Butcher, which was originally published September 1, 2001. I read the previous two books in this series back in 2013 or so, but really struggled with the main character's depression, which Butcher writes far too well for it not to affect me. At that time, I really couldn't handle it, so it got set aside. I'm glad I decided to try continuing this, because when I got the audio book, I discovered that it is narrated by James Marsters, aka Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It helped not reading the words, and really enjoyed hearing Marsters reading them. I will definitely be continuing my way through this series.

My favorite book of the month is one that I cannot in good conscience say everyone should read because its subject matter is definitely not for everyone. His Cocky Cellist by Cole McCade is a gay romance about a rich man and a young man who he hires to help him relearn how to play his cello. But for me, it is nearly everything I want in these stories. Amani is very much like a specific character I hold very close to my heart, and when I finished reading the story only to learn that McCade is one of those angry at the author of the books that other character is originally from, I knew I had to read everything he's done, because he and I definitely see things in similar ways. I can't wait to read his other stories. If you like gay romance, please give this story a try, because he does an amazing job of the rich/poor and white/non white divide. BUT...if you are not up to gay stories, and want to read books that tackle those other subjects, definitely stay tuned for my runners up for this month!

I read a ton of really great books in July that just made me fall in love with reading in a whole new way. They are all excellent examples of the new world of fantasy out there. 

The first is Legendborn by Tracy Deonn. This story is about a young Black girl in the south who goes to an early entrance local state university. There she discovers that there is a secret society made of the descendants of the Round Table. I love this story SO much, and cannot wait to read the next book as soon as it comes out next year. This one is a modern-day retelling of the Knights of the Round Table, but with the Black/white divide and history of the south strongly overlaid. If you want a story covering these aspects of our society, I strongly recommend this one. If you are white, I almost think this is a must-read. Honestly, if I had not read His Cocky Cellist the same month, Legendborn would have been my top read of July.

The next is The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune. This is a fantasy world where fantastical beings are part of the real world. The main character, Linus, works for Magical CPS checking in on magical children in orphanages and foster homes. He comes to the attention of the head of his company, and is sent on a special assignment to a very unusual house, where all the magical children are extreme cases. I will say that if there were such a genre as Magical Magical Realism, this would be one. This book is like...your favorite flavors of meringues. Sweet and light and will just make you so happy. And Linus's romance will just make you smile.

The last is one I have known about since it was written for NaNoWriMo, a writing challenge I have been taking part in since 2005. The book is The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. It's a strange little story about a bet between two magical people, and the two young people they use as their avatars in that challenge. I don't think this one is for everyone, but if you love circuses and strange tales of the fantastical, definitely give this one a look. There's a reason it's very highly rated on Goodreads.

My current and future reading:

Currently I am reading:

• Eagle's Shadow (Witches of London #2) by Aleksandr Voinov & Jordan Taylor (13%)
• I Am Not Spock by Leonard Nimoy (listening on You Tube, on part 3 of 4)
• Parable of the Sower (Earthseed #1) by Octavia Butler (haven't actually started yet, but will tomorrow)

My Current Libby list to read:

• Wonder Woman (DC Legends #1) by Leigh Bardugo
• Deception (Defiance #2) by CJ Redwine
• A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers #2) by Becky Chambers
• A Conjuring of Light (Shades of Magic #3) by VE Schwab
• Memento (Illuminae Files #.5) by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

Memento is the last book I haven't read of the Illuminae Files, as is A Conjuring of Light, so those will give me a few more series to add to my finished list. I'm not fully sold on the world of Defiance, but I enjoyed Redwine's fairy tale series so much, I'm willing to give it another book before I give it up.

My Library Hold list next 5:

• Lover Unveiled (Black Dagger Brotherhood #19) by JR Ward
• Summer Knight (Dresden Files #4) by Jim Butcher
• Cinderella Is Dead by Kalynn Bayron
• The Golem and the Jinni (The Golem and the Jinni #1) by Helen Wecker
• The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

I'm really looking forward to Lover Unveiled, as it is the most recent book of the series, so with that, I will be basically caught up, though there is a book in one of the companion series that is also out, so I will try to pick that up next.

And that's everything! What is everyone else reading? What was your favorite book last month? Have you read any of these, whether the ones I rec'd or the ones I'm currently or about to read? 

I'm off to go add more to my library hold lists! Talk to you all soon!