July Wrap-Up and August Goals

Yikes. July was not a good reading month. Well, it was, kind of. Just not officially. I read eight books, though only one of them was from my July-September TBR, meaning I’m way behind on that. Another five were Books 6-10 of Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events, which really don’t need much time nor investment to get through, so I feel like they don’t really count. Then life got in the way and I hit a readings lump, so it took two weeks to complete another book.

But enough moaning, let’s actually take stock:

Series of Unfortunate Events:

The Ersatz Elevator – 4/5
The Vile Village – 3/5
The Hostile Hospital – 4/5
The Carnivorous Carnival – 3/5
The Slippery Slope – 3/5

I didn’t actually review any of those, hence just the list.

The one book that I did read and review was The Year of Freaking Out by Sarah Walker. My review is here. This counts towards my Australian Women Writers Challenge. This was a cute book, though it felt a bit dated.

I also read The Art of Purring by David Michie and 1984 by George Orwell. Reviews for both of those are still forthcoming.

So, what’s on the agenda for August? Well, uni has started back and I’m a week behind because I thought semester began July 31, when it really started July 24. Oops! The joys of being an online student and never being on campus to get proper reminders. Hopefully this weekend I will get mostly caught up.

I am participating in the #ReadWriteRepeat August tag over on Instagram, and the first day was goals, so here they are:

One thing I did forget to include on there was to colour at least 45 pages from my adult colouring desk calendar. I still haven’t coloured most of July, so I’m hoping to catch up. I don’t think I did anywhere near enough mindfulness last month, so that’s a priority this month. I have a spreadsheet that includes all these goals, so fingers crossed that helps me really stick with it.

And August 2 was TBR. I accidentally got myself a library haul, so progress on the “official” TBR is likely to stall even further. Oh well. When one is in a reading slump, one picks up anything that sounds like it might be the book to get them out of it! At least some of them are audio books, right?

In case those are difficult to read, in order they are:

The Spice Merchant’s Wife by Charlotte Betts (print)
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (audio)
All the Little Liars by Charlaine Harris (audio)
The Forbidden by F. R. Tallis (print)
The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith (audio)
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (audio)
Flame in the Mist by Renee Ahdieh (print)

I didn’t actually realise until I got home that both The Silkworm and All the Little Liars are sequels (in fact All the Little Liars is #9 in the series!) but I figured I’d see how I go with them anyway.