August Reading Post!

 So I thought I would change things up and start with my favorite books of the month, and then go into the data I love, which is probably dry to everyone else. Lots of fun books this month, but I had no problems at all finding my top four and my all-time top, just because I couldn't stop telling people about that one, nor can I wait to read the next in that series.

My favorite of the month is a book with a fantasy gay romance. It's called The Lightning-Struck Heart by TJ Klune. The humor in this story is just wonderful. This is only the second of his books that have featured on my top books of the month. The first was last month's The House in the Cerulean Sea, which also had a wonderful lighthearted humor to it. I usually wait until I've read three different series, but I have definitely found a new favorite author here. For those interested, the story is about an apprentice wizard who is still growing into his power and learning who he is. And is in love with a knight who is the Crown Prince's fiancee. His best friends are a unicorn who's lost his horn, and a half-giant. And then the Crown Prince is abducted by a dragon, and all four (the wizard, the knight, the unicorn, and the half giant) have to go on a quest to save him. It's wonderful. If any of that sounds fun to you, and you don't mind lots of innuendo and sexy scenes, I highly recommend it.

My other three favorite books of the month are all science fiction. 

The first is an LGBT space story called A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers. It's the second in the Wayfarers series, about life of humans in the wider universe after we've had to abandon Earth. This one is about an AI and her friends, and their stories of learning how to be who they are and who they want to be.

The other two are a dystopian duology called The Parable of the Sower and the Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler. This is about a world twenty years from now where everything has fallen apart for the US, and people attack others--strangers, neighbors, whoever they feel threatened by or feel they have more. It's not a pretty world. The main character of the books is raised in a fairly sheltered community until her late teen years when her community is attacked and she loses nearly everything she knows. This is a dystopia, so if that bugs you, this is definitely not the series for you. But also, this is one of those far-too prescient sci fi stories, because it feels like a lot of what is going on in the US right now, with the President of her world saying some things that I have heard that man who called himself our President for four years saying. Like almost word for word. So if that would bother you, wait until we've had a few more good presidents between him and the time you read.

That said, all are fabulous books, and I do recommend them all.

In addition, my oldest book of the month was I Am Not Spock by Leonard Nimoy, which was published November 12, 1979. It's newer than I thought it was, and I can tell that I Am Spock, which I read a few years back, had the advantage of many more years of introspection. Nimoy had been going through a lot of uproar in his life in the 70s, and you can see he's still trying to figure it all out and where he stands. If you only read one of these, I suggest I Am Spock over this, but if you're a fan, there are some lovely moments in this one as well.

The newest book of the month was Lover Unveiled by JR Ward, which is the most recently published book in the Black Dagger Brotherhood. It was published April of the year, though it is definitely not the final of the series. I don't think she has plans for stopping ever at this point. I love this series, but it's been suffering from a lack of finality for a long time. I don't know if she has story arcs between the books any longer, or is just pushing forward as more story ideas occur to her. She's started to introduce random characters that feel a little too disconnected from the initial characters, and it's starting to feel a little frankensteinish, unfortunately. That said, if you enjoy them, this is another fun one.

And now, on to my stats for the month. 

So as predicted, my life has changed, and my ability to listen to audiobooks has dropped significantly. With the obvious result that August was my lowest amount of finished books for the year. I ended up reading a total of 23 books. I also DNF'd 1 book, though I have since gone back and finished one of the DNF's for July, so that almost feels cancelled. I did manage to finish another four series, though as you can see, my series finished seems to have dropped since the first half of the year because I am running out of series that I am excited to finish, though I still have several where the series itself is massive, so I'm still working on them, and several are unfinished, so I'm waiting on sequels. There may be a couple handfuls of series I will be able to finish, but overall, I think the numbers will remain on the lower end of thing for the last four months of the year (which just sounds very bizarre to say. I can't believe we're at the end of the year now...).

Of the 23 books I read in August, six were YA, one was NA, and sixteen were Adult. Fifteen of them were Audio form, four were EBooks, and one was a physical book. Of those books, seven were written by male authors, and fourteen for female authors. The character distribution was closer, as it often is, with sixteen male main characters and fourteen female main characters. Seven of those books had major characters who were LGBT, and seven had major characters that were POC. Not horrible, but I definitely want to do theme months next year that will include POC and LGBT characters, I think. 

My major genres were Romance and Fantasy as usual, but for the first time, Sci Fi made it into the top three. I'm kind of surprised it took this long to happen. Not that it's below Fantasy, as I've always leaned towards Fantasy, but that it hasn't shown as a genre until 8 months into the year. Not sure if this is because of the way I redid how I track genre or not, but there we are. I suppose it could be because Sci Fi as a genre has less series, or shorter series in general. I'll be curious to see if it shows up again this year.

My current and future reading:

Currently I am reading:

• Mordred, Bastard Son (The Chronicles of Mordred #1) by Douglas Clegg (3%)
• Record of a Spaceborn Few (Wayfarers #3) by Becky Chambers (62%)
• Level Up by Gene Luen Yang (39%)
• The Dark Discovery of Jack Dandy (Steampunk Chronicles #2.5) by Kady Cross (40%)
• Eagle's Shadow (Witches of London #2) by Aleksandr Voinov & Jordan Taylor (60%)

Very strange mix, but there you are. 

My Current Libby list to read:

• A Deadly Education (The Scholomance #1) by Naomi Novik
• The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
• Jade City (Green Bone Saga #1) by Fonda Lee
• The Golem and the Jinni (The Golem and the Jinni #1) by Helene Wecker

This will be the third story I've read by Novik, so I'm very much looking forward to that. All of them are stories I've been curious about for a long time. I hope they're all as good as I want them to be.

My Library Hold list next 4:

• Dune (Dune Chronicles #1) by Frank Herbert
• The Vampire Lestat (Vampire Chronicles #2) by Anne Rice
• The Throne of Fire (Kane Chronicles #2) by Rick Riordan
• Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall

Dune and Lestat are rereads. I never finished Dune when I tried to read it in my late teens because of my mom and my crush's love of the series. I didn't hate it, just got distracted, and with the new movie coming, I figure trying it as an audiobook couldn't hurt. And I wanted to continue the Vampire Chronicles, because there are several that I haven't read, but it's been a while, so I needed a refresh. Lestat is my favorite of the series that I've read in the past. I've both listened to the audio book, and also own the graphic novel. 

None of these are likely to come this month, but you never know. And I may find others that I want to reserve in the meantime. I'm looking forward to seeing how this month goes.

Happy almost-fall, everyone!