July Book Haul

Hey everyone! It’s been a while. I just realized I haven’t posted in a few weeks, so I thought I’d pop on and talk to you! I’ve been on vacation and lost power/WiFi over the past week, so I’ll leave that as my excuse for not posting (though I’ve also been a little distracted by the new season of Big Brother: All Stars and the Live Feed). But now, hopefully I’ll be able to post more on this blog! So, enjoy this super late July book haul that I totally forgot to post.

I read basically no books, but I sure bought a lot (which should honestly be my motto). I only finished Tweet Cute, which is pretty sad, considering the fact that I was in the house a lot from COVID. I did enjoy it though, so you can read my review about it over here! The even sadder part is that I went a little overboard on the book-buying, so I’m sure you’ll find this more enjoyable to read than my wrap-up of one book.

So, let’s take a look at everything I bought in July.

1. King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo

Okay, so I bought this one, for probably a bad reason, but you can help me decide. I actually borrowed this from my library about a month ago to read on my Kindle, since it had literally been on my TBR since when it released (so definitely over a year). I actually did start to read it, and I finished about 10% before getting bored and quitting. Even though I read Six of Crows and Shadow and Bone in the past, it was such a long time ago, and I did not remember enough of the characters to understand what was happening. So quick tip for everyone wanting to read this book: know those two series. All the characters are the same and there are so many references that you’ll want to know about. Okay, I went off on a total tangent with that, so let’s return to what I was saying.

I thought I was going to come back to it pretty soon, but I just wasn’t up to it, so the book was due, and I returned it. So you may be thinking, why would you ever buy it if it wasn’t interesting enough for you to read the first time around?

First of all, the cover is pretty and I really want that for my bookshelf (plus bonus that it’s yellow and it adds more color to my rainbow bookshelf). More seriously though, I’m a total mood-reader, and I was thinking that buying it would force me to read it again. Of course, I neglected the fact that literally half my bookshelf is unread (making up most of the books on my TBR), so I don’t know if it’s going to be that great at motivating me. I’m also horrible at going back to books at a later time. Usually, when I read it and don’t like it, it’s over.

But this time, I’m hoping that I’m going to change. This book has been on my TBR for way too long and I just really want to finish up everything in the Grishaverse if that makes sense? I’ve already read Six of Crows and Shadow and Bone, so it would only make sense for me to read King of Scars. We’ll see though, and you can just shower me with all those reminders so that it doesn’t become a living artifact with dust from me never opening its pages.

2. A Heart so Fierce and Broken by Brigid Kemmerer

I actually bought this one after reading it, much to the surprise of myself. I used to only buy books I’ve read and enjoyed, but I’ve changed now, probably for the worse. I haven’t read most the books I’ve purchased before, leaving no guarantee that I’ll even enjoy it. So this was a nice break from that unread book buying spree.

Even though I read it, I seriously don’t remember a single thing about it. If this was a life or death situation where I had to answer the most basic questions about the plot of the book, tell my family I love them. I’m not even kidding when I say that the only thing I remember from this book are the names of the characters. Like most books I read that aren’t in the past few months, I have a positive vibe 4-star vibe about the book, but I have no clue why. I remember liking this book and the series as a whole, but I can’t justify anything about it. I’ve seen some bad reviews of the book saying that it wasn’t as good as the previous one, but I can’t even tell if I agreed or disagreed with it.

For that reason, with this purchase, I’m hoping to actually reread this series. I do think I liked it for a reason, so I’m hoping to discover that reason with a reread. I kind of want to reread it later in the year in time for A Vow so Bold and Deadly (the final book in the series), but we’ll see. On the other hand, I don’t really want to leave it on my shelf for too long to the point where I forget about it and get too distracted. So I’m a little conflicted there, but I’ll try to keep my word of reading it.

3. How to Be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi

For a little backstory, I don’t read non-fiction. I know, it’s probably bad to spend all my time reading fantasy stories, but I’ve never found non-fiction to be that engaging. It usually takes me much longer to read and process the information compared to a fiction novel, making me even less interested in investing that much time into a book. However, there are some that I’ve really enjoyed, including Surrounded by Idiots (strange name, I know), so make that my official non-fiction recommendation of the day.

So this purchase was a little outside of what I normally read, but I still really want to get to it. I want to diversify my reads a little, and just read something that isn’t fantasy. I’ve seen this book a lot actually, on blogs and Instagram, so I’m hoping that it’s everywhere for a reason. I’ve read some reviews too, and they all seem positive, so I’m hoping that this one will be enjoyable as well! It seems like an interesting and powerful book too, so I’m definitely going to make it a goal of mine to read it by this month (and I’m totally going to try to honor that too)!

4. Aurora Burning by Jay Kristoff/Amie Kaufman

I actually bought this one at the end of June, but I’ll still count it as part of July’s book haul since it didn’t actually arrive until then. This is one of the few books where my purchase makes sense, so let’s enjoy this rare moment for a second. But all the things I do have to have something nonsensical to them, so what is it this time? Instead of buying a normal copy for this, I decided that it was a good idea to pay nearly double for orange sprayed edges. I admit, it does look really good with the orange cover, but it was probably not the best idea in a time where I was supposed to be on a book buying-ban. I don’t regret it though, so there’s that.

As for the actual book itself, I LOVED Aurora Burning when I read it just a few months ago, and I’m so excited for the third book. I’m hoping that I’ll reread this, and I definitely think there is a greater chance I might (compared to like A Heart so Fierce and Broken) since it was one of my favorite reads of the year.

I never really read sci-fi, but this one was actually really good and had the WORST cliffhanger. Like A Heart so Fierce and Broken, I am hoping that having these two will encourage me to reread the series before the third book comes out. But, you never know with all these distractions from so many amazing books.

Anyways, after writing this post, I realized that I bought a lot less books that I thought I did. I’m pretty proud of myself. You can see my elaborations dwindle down in size as the blog-post goes on too, so I think it’s a great place to stop! I’m definitely hoping to post at least weekly on this thing unless anything unexpected happens, so I’m looking forward to that. I know I posted every other day for a couple weeks, but that seriously started to burn me out. I’m not the best writer, and I admit that writing isn’t my favorite either (but I love talking to all of you, which makes blogging super fun), so it probably wasn’t the best to keep that up. I’m hoping that this more relaxed posting will prove to be more enjoyable for me!

Anyways, thanks everyone and happy book buying!

-Allison