Welcome one, welcome all, to my July Wrap Up! July was an interesting month. There was an important conference I had been building up to at work for months which turned out to be not as terrifying as I worried it would be but it was still A LOT, especially when it came to getting over it (I came back with definite conference flu). As a result, my reading was quite disrupted in the first half of the month whilst I worried about that conference and whilst I attended it. The conference was held in Edinburgh so me and Liz made a weekend of it before it started up and I got to show her some of the sights of a city I love visiting (and maybe one day wouldn’t mind living in).

Thankfully, my reading picked up in the latter half of July when I realised I needed to get reading or I would fail The Book Junkie Trials spectacularly! I am pleased to report I did reach the Bookie Grail but, as for the Reading Rush, I slightly failed that since I was a day late with finishing my TBR. Even so, I’m glad I took part in both of these readathons, and they helped to pull me out of what could have been a reading slump post-conference/Edinburgh. Let’s get onto the books themselves…

In July, I read a total of 12 books – 11 fiction and 1 non-fiction – and 5 were re-reads (marked by *). This amounted to 2998 pages in total.

In terms of format: 1 was a hardback, 4 were paperbacks, 2 were audiobooks, and 5 were ebooks.

As for genre, 5 were graphic novels, 2 were fantasy, 1 was YA paranormal, 1 was YA fantasy, 1 was contemporary/romance, 1 was a classic, and 1 was non-fiction.

Onto the books themselves…

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Welcome one, welcome all, to my June Wrap Up! June was a bit of a mixed bag month. Reading wise, I ended up deciding to take part in two readathons – A Game of Booksathon and Simsathon – despite the fact that I knew full well that I had a couple of holidays booked over half of the weekends in the month. You would think I would have realised that, for all I aspire to read on holidays such as these, I never do. And I was true to form and didn’t. That put me a little behind where I originally hoped to be with the two readathons but I won’t beat myself up about it too much because I made up for it a little bit in the second half of the month when I read, read, read to try to get some more challenges done for both of the readathons and I really did have such fun on both my holidays.

Firstly, me and Liz (and our other friend Cathy) visited our university friend Sarah in the town she now lives – Cardiff. Despite the fact I now live in Liverpool (and am therefore not far at all from the Welsh border), I’d never been to Wales until then. I know, I know, it’s crazy to think but I hadn’t ever had the reason or opportunity to do so. It was a lovely long weekend, we mostly just chilled out and hung out and we went for a walk in the Gower Peninsula which is just… stunning. Then, for my second little holiday, I went to the Scottish Highlands with my group of friends from school and it was just lovely. Our Air BnB was wonderful and so huge and my friends Kate and Tom brought along their gorgeous dog Daisy so many a petting of Daisy was had – and it made me feel a lot better. (Guys, I need a dog.) We went on a couple of walks, visited a castle (it was the place they filmed that Highlands episode of Downton Abbey for any Downton fans in the house), and generally just hung out and played a lot of boardgames (Obama Llama, Chameleon, and Scrawl now firm favourites). It’s also made me realise that I really do actually like going on longer walks and I should make an effort to get out more and do it more often, especially considering I don’t live far from arguably one of the most stunning National Parks – the Lake District.

But enough about me realising I hope to someday genuinely fulfil my aesthetic of walking boots, a dog, and the Lake District, let’s see how my reading went in June!

In June, I read a total of 8 books – 8 fiction and 0 non-fiction – and 2 were re-reads (marked by *). This amounted to 3272 pages in total.

In terms of format: 2 were hardback, 1 was paperback, and 5 were audiobooks.

As for genre, 2 were fantasy, 1 was middle-grade/children’s, 1 was romance, 1 was YA contemporary, 1 was YA fantasy/mystery, 1 was YA fantasy/paranormal, and 1 was historical fantasy.

Onto the books themselves…

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Welcome one, welcome all, to my May Wrap Up! May brought with it the very first readalong I’ve ever hosted, of Les Misérables which I called #MiserablesMay (aptly, I think). As always with these long readalongs (see: War and Peace and The Count of Monte Cristo), I was behind pretty much every day of the month, but I still enjoyed reading and writing weekly progress posts. Plus, it’s nice to be able to tick off a book that, for years, I’ve said I’ve practically read because I’d skimmed a bunch of it and then closely analysed various passages for my undergraduate dissertation. It’s nice to be able to definitively say I’ve read Les Misérables from cover to cover. I’m sure I’ll do a proper review of it at some point but, for now, I’m just revelling in not having to read 60+ pages of a long French classic every day to keep up with my own readalong. Of course, true to form, June brings me participating in two readathons at the same because, apparently, I never learn. But, first, let’s see how May’s reading looked (spoiler alert: I’m pleasantly surprised I managed to read anything else on top of Les Misérables):

In May, I read a total of 7 books – 7 fiction and 0 non-fiction – and 1 were re-reads (marked by *). This amounted to 3278 pages in total.

In terms of format: 1 were hardback, 2 were paperback, 3 were audiobooks, and 1 was an ebook.

As for genre, 3 were YA fantasy/mystery, 2 were contemporary/romance, 1 was fantasy, and 1 was a classic.

Onto the books themselves…

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Welcome one, welcome all, to my April Wrap Up! April saw the dawning of the first bit of the Magical Readathon for 2019: the OWLs Readathon. Because of the readathon I got a lot of books read and I’m actually really proud of everything I managed to read this past month because I enjoyed pretty much all of it. Taking part in this readathon is always fun because G, the host, is SO extra and puts so much extra little bits and pieces into the readathon to make it feel truly magical and bring all the participants together as a community. Speaking of readathons, I also found out late in the game about the Avengers Readathon so obviously I’m taking part in that too, in a more low-key way.

Speaking of the Avengers, April was also important for one very good reason – Avengers Endgame, the culmination of over 10 years of the MCU. To be honest, I’m still processing what happened in the film and I’ll probably need to rewatch it a good few times before I can decide what I thought about everything. I wish I could write a blog post about it but, to be honest, it’s hard to sum up that many years of films and emotions even slightly concisely. It sounds like an exaggeration but when I thought about it, the MCU films have been basically the main/only films I’ve seen in the cinema for the past 8 or so years so, you know, it’s been an important part of my consumption of culture and entertainment and that’s a lot to take in.

May brings the very first readalong I’ve ever hosted: we’re reading Les Misérables in a month (hopefully anyway) so be sure to check out #MiserablesMay and join in if you’re interested! But before I get too far ahead of myself, let’s take a look at my reading in April:

In April, I read a total of 13 books – 13 fiction and 0 non-fiction – and 3 were re-reads (marked by *). This amounted to 4320 pages in total.

In terms of format: 4 were hardback, 4 was a paperback, 4 were ebooks, and 1 was an eARC.

As for genre, 1 was fantasy, 4 were YA fantasy, 3 were contemporary/romance, 3 were graphic novels, 1 was drama, and 1 was historical fiction.

Onto the books themselves…

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Welcome one, welcome all, to my March Wrap Up!

Two important and entirely unrelated events happened in March – Captain Marvel was released and I went to hear V.E. Schwab speak at Waterstones in Liverpool. Both of these things were awesome and experiences that I wish I could repeat. On the one hand, Captain Marvel was amazing – from its nineties-heavy soundtrack to Brie Larson kicking ass and doing it FOR HERSELF (not to prove anything to anyone, let alone a dude), I loved everything about it. And, on the other hand, hearing V speak about her writing process was great – she’s always so inspiring and this talk/signing was no exception. I made sure to get my unsigned books of hers signed too and let her pick her favourite of the Illumicrate ADSOM character tarot cards to sign – she picked Holland, for those who are curious!

Moving onto other bookish things, how did March’s reading go? Well, it was an odd sort of reading month as I felt like I was in something of a slump even though I know that, deep down, I was doing pretty well, I just happened to be reading reasonably long fantasy books. Considering the ratings I ended up giving these books I read, it’s clear to see that I was reading some really brilliant books too so I couldn’t be too disheartened by how long it seemed to take me to finish a couple of them. I was also very aware that the Magical Readathon and Camp NaNoWriMo were both on the horizon in April so I didn’t want to tire myself out with reading and writing too much in March.

But before looking to the future, let’s look at March in more detail, shall we?

In March, I read a total of 4 books – 4 fiction and 0 non-fiction – and 1 was a re-read (marked by *). This amounted to 2267 pages in total.

In terms of format: 2 were hardback, 1 was a paperback, and 1 was an ebook.

As for genre, 3 were fantasy and 1 was a historical fantasy.

Onto the books themselves…

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Welcome one, welcome all, to my February Wrap Up. February has been a bit of an odd month. It felt like the month where not much happened, all in all. January is always a bit of a struggle with the winter blues and post-Christmas come down, but February is meant to feel a little bit more hopeful and cheerful. I’m still torn on how I actually felt about the month, looking back on it now, but it was the month where I tried to get my arse back in gear with a bunch of lifestyles and admin stuff, mainly: culling my room (finally clearing some clothes and books), properly cataloguing my books (FINALLY), getting back into a semi-regular schedule of gym-class attending, and feeling more motivation to get better at my blogging and social media game. The highlights of the month were a visit from the girls from university (we mostly just low-key hung out and also went to see Rhod Gilbert’s comedy gig which was very good) and the new/recent releases I got to coo over, namely King of Scars, The Kingdom of Copper, and The Priory of the Orange Tree.

In terms of my reading, after last month’s participation in many a readathon (ok, three, but that’s a lot for one month!), February was a month which was relatively low-key. I didn’t participate in any readathons or readalongs and instead I just read what I wanted to and that, unsurprisingly enough, consisted of fantasy. I didn’t read nearly as many books as I did in January but that’s more than ok because I’m still slowing chipping away at the prompts for the Around the Year in 52 Books reading challenge, and well on my way to completing my 52 books read in 2019 Goodreads goal.

In February, I read a total of 4 books – 4 fiction and 0 non-fiction – and 2 were re-reads (marked by *). This amounted to 1734 pages in total.

In terms of format: 3 were hardback and 1 was an audiobook.

As for genre, 3 were YA fantasy and 1 was a fantasy.

Onto the books themselves…

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Welcome one, welcome all, to my January Wrap Up. January is, quite rightly, often portrayed as either THE BEST or THE WORST – there’s nothing inbetween. Some people see January as that arbitrary annual start of the ‘new you’. There are entire industries that depend on (and feed into) this constructed narrative and, hell, I fall for it every year when I make yearly goals and resolutions. Even so, it’s easy to feel slumpy, cold, isolated, sad, or all of the above, during January. It feels like the longest month for many of us paid monthly (when did the 28th feel so far away???) and, for students, it often feels like you’re just slumping around the house for term to start again (I remember the feeling well).

Personally, I don’t know quite where I stand on January as a whole. A few baltic cold days have meant that getting to work has been a headache, being in work has been bearable only because I have a hot water bottle clutched to my body 80% of the time, and time after work has mostly been spent getting warm again and snuggling up without wanting to go outside for any reason. My one thing I intended to do this month (see the Kaiser Chiefs play) ended up being cancelled due to illness so I’ve mostly just worked, ate (way too much), ignored the gym calling out to me desperately, and (luckily enough for this post) read a bunch of things.

Although I felt like I was reading quite slowly throughout the month, I somehow managed to read quite a few things. I cannot deny that some of those things were comic book issues and graphic novels/bindups but, hey, they still count. I took part in three readathons (with varying degrees of participation and/or success), Bout of Books, Winter Biannual Bibliothon, and 24in48. I’m also very pleased that I managed to tick off quite a few challenges towards my Around the Year in 52 Books reading challenge, as well as making a serious dent in my usual annual Goodreads goal of reading 52 books. I’m hoping that such a productive and positive start to my reading year will mean that once this momentum inevitably runs out, I have a little room to slow it down if need be and/or take the time to read some longer books if I wish. (I’m looking at you Les Misérables and War and Peace.)

But I’m getting somewhat ahead of myself, let’s re-focus and have a look back over how the bookish stats for my January look…

In January, I read a total of 12 books – 12 fiction and 0 non-fiction – and 2 were re-reads (marked by *). This amounted to 3323 pages in total.

In terms of format: 7 were paperback, 3 were ebooks, 1 was an eARC, and 1 was an audiobook.

As for genre, 4 were YA fantasy, 2 were contemporary/romance, 1 was children’s fantasy, 2 were fantasy graphic novels, 2 were fantasy/horror comic books, and 1 was a classic.

Onto the books themselves…

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