Read in July

Hi everyone! I can't believe July has come to an end already. In terms of reading, July has really been a good month. I finished a lot of books, mostly ARCs, and I actually enjoyed reading a lot this month.

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# of books read: 6

-  Still Not Over You by Jenny Frame *
- The Mall by Megan McCafferty *
- Persuasion by Jane Austen
- Children of Blood and Bone (Legacy of Orïsha #1) by Tomi Adeyemi
- The Four Profound Weaves by R.M. Lemberg *
- There Are Things I Can't Tell You by Edako Mofumofu

* = ARC

Best book of the month: The Mall probably, even though I also loved Children of Blood and Bone. The Mall was fun, funny and just generally amazing. It's basically the ultimate feel-good young adult book, and it's set in the early 1990s too which I loved.

Worst book of the month: There Are Things I Cannot Tell You because of a really bad surprise!rape scene that wasn't handled properly, ugh. 

Review: There Are Things I Can't Tell You [ARC]

TITLE: There Are Things I Cannot Tell You

AUTHOR: Edaku Mofumofu

RELEASE DATE: July 21 2020

RATING: 1/5 ★

REP: poc cast, gay characters

TWs: homophobia, abuse, rape

Genre: manga

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E-ARC kindly provided by the publisher.

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Honestly the story line was fine, a lot of yaoi is built around homophobic themes/tropes and I feel like that definitely was the case here (I'm usually able to look past that because I'm aware of the problematic aspects of the genre in and of itself) and up until a certain point, I was willing to rate this book two stars because while I was pretty uninterested in the story, I didn't hate it. Then wham! A Rape Scene That Was Played Off As Being Consentual (when one character was literally begging the other one to stop too...!) and my rating went doooooooown. Needless to say, this wasn't for me, but if you're into reading yaoi I guess you could give this a try, just beware of the rape scene.

I liked the art style just fine though.

Review: The Four Profound Weaves [ARC]

TITLE: The Four Profound Weaves

AUTHOR: R.B. Lemberg

RELEASE DATE: September 4 2020

RATING: 3/5 ★

REP: poc cast, trans characters, nonbinary side characters, polyamory

TWs: torture, transphobia, misgendering, deadnaming.

Genre: adult fantasy

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E-ARC kindly provided by the publisher.

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I sang as the wind and the feathers dissolved into the sand under my feet. I sang because my transformation was complete. I sang the dawnsong - the sacred melody that the men of my people sing, standing on the roof of the men's quarter every morning.

Review: The Mall [ARC]

TITLE: The Mall
AUTHOR: Megan McCafferty
RELEASE DATE: July 28 2020

RATING: 5/5 ★

TWs: mentions of sexual assault

Genre: YA historical fiction

Representation: Asian love interest

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E-ARC kindly provided by the publisher. A big thank you also goes out to Wednesday Books for inviting me to take part in this blog tour.

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"Until that moment, I hadn't pictured Helen as someone with parents. In my mythology, she was not a normal human infant birthed on this Earth. No, Helen had emerged as a fully-formed monster from the fires of the Hades, a malevolent, vengeful hell-beast forged in the underworld's furnace to make my last summer in Pineville as miserable as possible.
When, in fact, she was just a girl who was hurting inside.
Helen had demons. She wasn't a demon."

Review: Still Not Over You [ARC]

TITLE: Still Not Over You

AUTHOR: Jenny Frame, Carsen Taite, Ali Vali
RELEASE DATE: July 14 2020

RATING: 2.5/5 ★

REP: lesbian MCs, Cuban characters

TWs: none

Genre: contemporary romance

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E-ARC kindly provided by the publisher.

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”Emma, I need to explain.”
She held up a hand. “Don’t. You may need to explain, but I’m in a good place right now and absolving you of guilt isn’t part of that.”

TBR in July

Oh, July. My month off. My time to read an unlimited number of books, hopefully. I shall be keeping my TBR rather brief to leave room for some ~whims (basically me saying I'm going to try whichever way possible to read more). But anyways, here it is!

- Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi (challenges: big books, books I own, need to read urgently-shelf, series)
- Persuasion by Jane Austen (challenges: classics, books I own)
- The Mall by Megan McCafferty [ARC] 
- Still Not Over You by multiple authors [ARC] (challenges: adult contemporary, LGBT - f/f)


Happy reading!

Read in June

Hi guys,

another month of abysmal reading on my part. Like, on some days I look forward to reading all day and then by the time night comes around and I finally have time to read, all my will is gone or I get distracted by something else or I end up falling asleep or...the possibilities of me doing literally anything else but read are endless. The most surprising thing about this is that I haven't even had that bad a luck with my books, the majority of all books I've read I have rather enjoyed so I don't know what's up with that. It's gotten bad enough that I've lowered my Goodreads reading goal from 50 to 35 books which is saying something because that's literally never happened before...! As of today, I'm off work for a month so I'm hoping and praying my will to read will return from the war because I am kinda over not reading as much as I used to and especially not WANTING to read as much as I used to.

Anyways, onto the rather shameful list of books I read this month (or rather, this past month as it's actually July today!).

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# of books read: 3

-  A Closed And Common Orbit (Wayfarers #2) by Becky Chambers 
- Jag for ned till bror (Jana Kippo #1) by Karin Smirnoff
- All the Paths to You by Morgan Lee Miller 

Best book of the month: I think I'm going to have to go with A Closed And Common Orbit because I've realized just how much I like that universe. It's truly so happy and wholesome to read, I love it.

Worst book of the month: While it not necessarily being bad per se, I totally feel like Jag for ned till bror was a bit overrated and overhyped for what it was.