SUMMER 2020 WRAP UP
It seems that seasonal wrap ups are becoming my thing instead of monthly wrap ups and that's ok. Honestly I feel like what I read in a season is a better mark for me than what I read in a month because there are months where I read only one book and then the next month I get hooked on a genre and read 6 books back to back within 4 days. So without further ado, here is my wrap up!
Ok so like all things considered, I had a great reading summer. I read 14 books, which maybe doesn't seem a lot to some, but I was convinced up to about ten minutes ago that I had only read about 8 books this summer. As you can see, this was a very heavy contemporary summer. Contemporary isn't really my thing most of the time and by far is not my favorite genre, but apparently that was my shit this summer. That being said, I didn't enjoy all the contemporaries that I read this summer, but I enjoyed most of them.
Favorite book: It's probably a tie between The Hating Game and The V Girl, both which were rereads for me. (I love my rereads.). If I had to choose my favorite new read however, it would be The Shadows Between Us by Tricia Levenseller. I bought this book on a whim at a bookstore I visited and I'm so glad I did because this book was exactly what I needed in the moment.
Least favorite book: Without a doubt is If I Never Met You by Mhairi McFarlane. I don't understand the hype around this book because I did not like it at all. I actually attempted to read this book early in the year but DNFed it because I couldn't get into it. I decided to give it another whirl because so many people enjoyed it and I thought maybe I originally just hadn't been in the right mindset for it, but I was wrong. There was no chemistry between the two main characters which is key when doing a fake relationship to real relationship story. And as for a plot, there literally was none whatsoever. Such a disappointment and waste of my time.
Honorable Mentions: I don't have the time to talk about all the books I read, but I did want to touch on a few of them. I read two books by Chloe Liese and what I really enjoyed about her books is that there is always a main character with some sort of disability, whether it's being deaf, autism, chronic pain, etc. and I thought that kind of representation was incredibly great. I don't often think about how most books portray able-bodied characters so this definitely made me more aware that I should be more diverse with my books in that aspect as well. She is an OWN author, having autism spectrum disorder so I think it's great she is able to write such inclusive books.
Another book that surprised me was Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall. I don't know how I came across this book but I expected it to be complete utter trash and it wasn't. It was a nice, quick, feel good read that felt like an aged up book along the same vein of Red, White, and Royal Blue. I'm always happy when I come across LGBT+ books that I can add to my collection.
So that was what I read this summer. I'm actually pretty proud of all that I was able to read and I can't wait to see what the fall has in store for me.
SOMEHOW IT'S BEEN 6 YEARS...
This month marks 6 years since I started this blog. I honestly can't believe it's still going (barely, but it's here, so that counts). I've been off and on with my care for this blog as I've gone through different stages of life and reading. When I started this blog, I was a junior in high school. I have since graduated high school, graduated college, had a post-college job (which I ended up hating, but hey, it was a necessary life lesson), and now I'm in a graduate post-bacc pre-PhD program trying to move forward on my journey towards becoming a PhD doctor. I've had many ups and downs through this time which has led to many different stages in my reading and attentiveness to this blog. I wish I was as dedicated to reading and this blog as I was when I first started, but that just isn't possible. There is hardly enough time in the day for me to do everything I need to do, much less put energy towards being an active blogger. But I'm not completely giving up. Even if it means only putting out 5 blog posts in one year, this isn't something that I'm ready to let go because I'm proud of the work I put into this. I love being able to go back and read my thoughts on a book I read in high school and cringe because I just reread said book and realized how completely problematic or sucky it was. Reading is still something I do pretty regularly and that I love very much, I just don't feel as much pressure to put out full reviews of my thoughts like I used to. Sometimes it's great to just read a book and cherish those feelings you have towards a book without worrying about how your opinions are going to be perceived by others. And speaking of community, I've said this before, but I've never really felt deeply a part of the bookish community like others. This is in part, my fault, but sometimes I'm glad I haven't completely rooted myself in it because some of the noneness and drama that goes on is just ridiculous. I feel like this community stopped being about sharing our love for books and became a beast of its own. Well this is has been a lot of rambling, and if you're still reading this, thank you. I will forever be grateful for the handful of you who felt that my words were worth reading. I won't sit here and promise I'll post more, but I can promise I'm not going away. I will continue to publish my sporadic wrap ups and reviews as I feel inclined to and honestly that's enough for me. Maybe someday I'll be able to be back where I was when I first started this blog, but I know now is not that time and that time won't be for a while.
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