July Reading Wrap-Up

July was a pretty good reading month for me. I managed to finish ten books. A couple were pretty short, but there were some definite keepers in this batch.

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Here’s what I read in July:

I started the month with It’s Not All Downhill From Here by Terry McMillan. The only other book I’ve read by her is How Stella Got Her Groove Back, which I read before I saw the movie. I liked this one. It was a little meandering and repetitive at times, but I think it did a great job portraying a woman dealing with grief over losing her husband suddenly, and I really appreciate the way the author portrays female friendships.

After that, I read Intercepted by Alexa Martin. I wasn’t sure I was going to like this one because I’m not a fan of professional sports (other than swimming). I picked it up because the author was an NFL wife, and I listened to a podcast interview with her that I really enjoyed. I’m glad I finally read this because it was another solid win for female friendships, and I really liked the story and the romance. Definitely recommend this one for anyone who enjoys contemporary romance.

Then I read three more that I really liked. The first was Catfishing on Catnet by Naomi Kritzer, which was really cute and fun and light. Highly recommend. Then Chaos Reigning by Jesse Mihalik, which was book three in a space opera romance series that I’ve been enjoying. I think I liked this book the best of the three. If you like space opera you should definitely check out this series. And then I read another last book in a trilogy, Hurts to Love You by Alisha Rai. I like all the books in the Forbidden Hearts series, each for different reasons, but I think this might have been my favorite.

My virtual book club decided to read Beach Read by Emily Henry and The Deep by Rivers Solomon, Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, Jonathan Snipes. Both were really good with some superficial similarities, but they were otherwise very different books. Beach Read is (mostly) light romance about two writers who meet again after having secret crushes on each other in college. I really connected with the book-writing subplot and thought the romance was sufficiently swoony. The main characters in both Beach Read and The Deep are dealing with painful memories, but The Deep really dives into that and has only a small romantic subplot (which I wasn’t expecting, but was a welcome, hopeful touch). The other thing the two books have in common are incredibly interesting authors’ notes at the end. I love learning more about the story behind the story. I liked and recommend both of these books.

But wait, there’s more! I don’t know about you, but one of the biggest struggles I’ve had to deal with over the past few months of the “quarantimes” is all the FOMO from my decision to stay home and continue to do my socializing over the internet, or from a distance, outside. I’m kind of a people pleaser. It’s way easier for me to rock the boat on behalf of someone else than to speak up for myself. So, I’ve been working on setting and communicating boundaries. As such, I’ve found the Life Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck by Sarah Knight to be really helpful. I’m currently listening to her book F*ck No on Libby. When I saw she had a brief Christmas themed novella (How to Not Give a F*ck at Christmas), I thought I’d check it out. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that helpful. While I recommend the other two books, I don’t recommend buying the novella.

Last, but not least, I listened to two non-fiction books on Libby, White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo and The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio. Both were really good. I’d been putting off reading White Fragility because I was pretty sure it was all going to be review for me, and mostly it was review, but it was an excellent review and an even better resource for talking with friends and family about this stuff. I highly recommend bumping this to the top of your TBR if you’ve been putting off reading it, like I was. And, if you want to expand beyond how Black people are treated in America, definitely check out The Undocumented Americans. My husband and I traveled to Ecuador just over ten years ago and heard some stories like this first-hand from the folks we met there, but this book goes way beyond what I already knew. I love getting new perspectives!

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I got to load up my Kindle with more books from my library in July. There are so many gems in this haul, but there are a few that I’m particularly excited to read. Those are: A Song of Wraith and Ruin, The Sound of Stars, You Should See Me in Crown, and Race the Sands. We shall see which one(s) I read first…

Currently Reading

Speaking of what I’m reading right now… There are two readathons going on this month, but I’m not participating in either of them. The first is The other option is Tome Topple, which starts today. The other is the NEWTs Magical Readathon. I’m planning on skipping both because I don’t think I’m going to have a lot of time for reading this month.

This round of NEWTs is going to be the last of the Magical Readathons associated with Harry Potter. Since I completed all but one of the OWLs back in April. I was looking forward to getting my Animagus certificate, and I was all set to try for a number of different magical career options. I may still try to see what I can manage, but if it doesn’t work out, I’m excited to see what G comes up with for next year.

Okay, it’s past my bedtime, and this post is already very long (and several days late). So, I’m going to cut myself off and get to sleep. Until next time, stay home and read, and if you have to go out, please wear a mask! ❤