July wrap-up

Wow what a reading month. With both Tome topple and the summer Biannual Bibliothon I managed to get a lot of books shifted off my TBR and onto my read shelf. It was a month of conquering big books and some of the best reads of the year.

WRAP-UP STATS

Books: 12

Pages: 4,975

Ratings:

5 Stars: 4

4 Stars: 4

3.5 Stars: 1

3 Stars: 1

2 Stars: 1

1.5 Stars: 1

WHAT I READ – Readathons

Most of the books I have already wrapped up in my two readathon wrap up’s this month.

The month started off with Tome Topple, for which I managed to read four books:

The Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness: 3 Stars (reviewed here)

Before the Devil Breaks You by Libba Bray: 4 Stars

The seven deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton: 5 Stars

The Last Magician by Lisa Maxwell: 3.5 Stars

You can find my thoughts for them in my Wrap-up post 

For the Summer Biannual Bibliothon I read four books:

Lost Boy by Christina Henry : 5 Stars

Binti: the night masquerade by Nnedi Okorafor : 5 Stars

Shadowblack by Sebastian de Castell: 4 Stars

Carve the mark by Veronica Roth: 1.5 Stars

You can find my thoughts for them in my Wrap-up post 

WHAT I READ – not for readathons

I also managed to read a few books outside of the readathons. I will start with the lowest and move up to the best.

Wink, Poppy, Midnight by April Genevieve Tucholke

While this book did start of with an interesting premise of moving between three different perspectives of our main characters Wink, Poppy and Midnight who are very candid and openly admit their faults. I just didn’t enjoy the actual story, I honestly just didn’t get it. It just seemed a bit contrived and devoid of any adult presence despite all three teenagers referring to their parents often. It ended so bizarrely that and there was no real investment in the characters.

1.5 Stars

An Unkindness of Magicians by Kat Howard

This really was not what I expected but I loved it regardless. I was expecting a magical tournament but instead got a book filled with political intrigue and movement but with magic. I do wish there was more description of the magic system and the duels themselves but the characters were great and evil and awesome and I genuinely really enjoyed this read.

4 Stars

Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente

I finally finished this book. I really enjoyed this fast paced comic sci-fi. The alien diversity is fantastic. It reads extremely like Douglass Adams so if you are a fan of Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy and you also are a fan of Eurovision this is the book for you. If i hadn’t read Valente before I would have totally believed she was a Brit, the humour is spot on.

4 Stars

A gathering of shadows by V. E. Schwab

This was a re-read so I could annotate. I think I enjoyed it more this time round as I knew there was the cliffhanger. Therefore, I remember more of the story than my first read.

5 Stars

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I think July was great preparation for the mammoth month of reading August is going to be due to the N.E.W.Ts readathon. A lot of big books were cleared from my TBR shelves.

How did your July go?

Have you read any of these books? What did you think? Find me in the comments or on Twitter to chat!