July TBR

It's time for another TBR! Last month I began on making big plans for my reading in July, so I'm excited to get into those now that the month has started. In July, I will be challenging myself to read only diverse books. I'm hoping that, by dedicating a month to finding and reading diverse books, it will change my reading patterns. I definitely don't search for diverse books as often as I should. It's something I tend to save for later, when I get through all my books on my immediate TBR. Which, of course, never happens. So I'm starting now!

To begin with the books I'll be reading this month, I do have two current reads. I couldn't wait to start Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda after hearing all the hype, so I started the audiobook in June. Due to my reading slump, I'm still pretty close to the beginning, but making progress! Hopefully I can finish this one soon -- I'll be writing a lot in July, which usually means more audiobooks than text. I guess I get tired of looking at actual words!

The other book I started at the end of June was Far From You by Tess Sharpe. I bought this (first full-price book I've purchased in quite awhile!) as a reward for finishing last months review books, so I couldn't wait until July to begin! I really enjoyed the little bit that I read, but again, reading slump. It's a pretty quick read though, so I can probably finish it pretty fast once I get back into reading it.

And from here we get into the books I haven't started yet, that I plan to read. Although I have many potential reads (all listed on my Goodreads shelf, if anyone is interested), I'll just list a few that I'm most likely to get to here, starting with The Miseducation of Cameron Post. I have been meaning to get to this one for quite awhile, so hopefully it'll happen this month.

Next I really want to read Liar by Justine Larbalestier. This is one I came across just recently, and I'm super excited to get to it! This one is about a compulsive liar. I really like books with unreliable narrators, and this seems to be just that! Micah's boyfriend dies and she has to begin to tell the truth, but how can she do that when she's so used to lying about everything? This seems super great and suspenseful, and I really hope it meets the expectations I have for it.

And that's it for this month! As I said, go ahead and check out my Goodreads shelf for more diverse books that I might read this month, if I get through the four listed here. Also, you can check out a duplicate of this post on my new blog, BookMatcher, where I add in some monthly goals and talk about the things I'll be posting over there this month. 

Also, tell me what you'll be reading! Any diverse books planned for the month? (Or any that you would recommend me?)

In June...

June has been a crazy month. While every other month this year has seemed to fly by, I feel like June took its time and lasted forever. Despite some of the real-life, awful things that happened to make this month so long, though, it was a great writing and blogging month for me!

The most notable thing that happened to me as a blogger is that I'm in the process of moving the blog. (That links to my announcement post that went up earlier this week.) My new blog is called BookMatcher (link to the actual blog, there!), and I am SUPER excited about it. It's just what I needed to get back into my excitement for blogging again, and I'm having so much fun.

Anyway, onto what I read this month...

I read 5 books in June.

• The Nature of Jade by Deb Caletti | My Review
• The Distance Between Us by Kasie West | My Review
• How to be Bad by E. Lockhart, Sarah Mlynowski, and Lauren Myracle | Review coming soon!
• The Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski | No Review
• If You're Lucky by Yvonne Prinz | Review coming in October! (I read a review copy super early!)

I feel pretty good about this, considering how busy this month has been. And it's probably more than I will be reading next month, simply because I'm participating in Camp NaNoWriMo. My goal for that is 60,000 words (I know, I'm crazy for making the word goal higher instead of lowering it), so I'll be writing like crazy next month! 

June TBR

My TBR for this month is going to be quite a bit larger for this month than it has been in any other post - usually I pick only 4-5 books that I know I can probably get to, but I'm going to be more ambitious this month!

Part of the reason is that I'm participating in a readathon. I don't do these often, but the challenges for this one sounded fun and I feel like it'll be nice to start off the month with a bunch of reading! If you're interested in which readathon I'm taking part in, it is the TBR Takedown Readathon, which is hosted by Shannon from leaninglights on Youtube. (The link leads to the readathon announcement video!)

This is also why my TBR is up a bit earlier than usual - I wanted to post it before the actual readathon began!

TBR

The Nature of Jade is the book that's been on my shelf for over a year, to fit with one of the readathon challenges. I have wanted to read this book for so long, but always put it off - not because I don't want to read it, but another book always seems to get in the way, and then I forget! I might make this my first read during the month, just so that I don't end up putting it off again.

A sequel that's sitting on my shelf is The Winner's Crime, which is perfect because I'm listening to the audio version of book one now, and I already planned to jump straight into book two. I'm really excited to catch up on this series, although I hope there isn't too much of a cliffhanger at the end of this book - it'll be awhile before book three is released.

Since one of the challenges is to read a first book in a series and there is a TON of hype regarding this one right now, I'm going to listen to the audiobook of An Ember in the Ashes this month. I don't know a lot about the plot, but I do have high hopes just because of all the hype. However, since I haven't started the audiobook, I might put it down if I think I would prefer the text version of the book. (I've had pretty bad luck lately when it comes to not liking a narrator's voice in audiobooks!) If that happens, I will start a different series instead - I definitely have enough of them to choose from.

It was difficult to pick a book that's out of my comfort zone - it took me awhile to find a book I wanted to read that fits the requirement - but I think Vanishing Girls works well here. While it's young adult, so the genre isn't a problem, I do tend to either love or hate Lauren Oliver's books. I've been putting this one of for a long time because of that, but I think this challenge is a perfect chance to pick this up.

My last book for the readathon is going to be Cinder. This is one of the books I bought in May, so it fits the last challenge. This also makes for a LOT of reading in one week, many of them audiobooks, so we'll see if I can do it! If not, I'll probably keep reading from this list throughout the month.

But when I do finish these, my next planned read for the month is If You're Lucky. This is a review book that does not come out until the end of November, but I've been dying to read it, and now's the perfect time - I don't have any review books that must be read this month, so it's a good time to catch up on later releases!

Lastly, I would like to get to A History of Glitter and Blood, another review book that will be released late July. If I find time for this during the month, I will have no unread review books, which would be so awesome! (Then I can go on a requesting spree without feeling bad, haha!) This one is a fantasy and it looks awesome, just like all the others I'm reading this month - hopefully, these all meet my expectations and June ends up being my lucky month for reading great books.

In May...

May has been a fantastic month. I have read a ton, kept up with the blog, and gotten back into writing! The last one, especially, is so exciting. I've been in a writer's block lately that mostly consisted of laziness and me not wanting to edit, but I pushed through and am in love with the draft I'm working on now.

I read a total of 9 books in May.

• Joyride by Anna Banks | My Review
• City of Bones by Cassandra Clare | My Review
• Falling Into Place by Amy Zhang | Review coming soon!
• Snow Like Ashes by Sara Raasch | Review coming soon!
• A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray | Review coming soon!
• The Summer of Chasing Mermaids by Sarah Ockler | Review coming soon!

I also began reading graphic novels, which I decided to list separately:

• Adventure Time Vol. 1 and 2
• Adventure Time: Marceline and the Scream Queens

I don't tend to review anything that isn't strictly a "novel" just because it's difficult for me and, especially in this case, I haven't read enough similar work to give a useful review. But I did enjoy these as some lighter things to pick up between reads, and I do plan to branch out into more very soon. (If you have recommendations, leave them in the comments!)

I completely forgot I even had monthly goals.

I'm not upset that this happened. My month was awesome, and I was productive - just not in all the ways I planned. Which is fine, because I did not plan to spend so much of my time editing my fantasy novel - but I'm so glad I was able to get back into it! (You might hear me talk about this a lot. I'm proud!)

So, looking back at the post, I planned to stay caught up on reading blog posts and replying to my own comments. This sort of happened. I got backed up on comments this month for my post on why I don't comment back, which received some really great comments. (Thank you!) I loved the discussion, but some of my responses took me longer to come up with than I would have liked. (Meaning, mostly, that I let them sit in my email too long before going to the blog to reply.)

I also wanted to be more consistent when sharing reviews, and I have done that! I'm getting ready to go through each book on Goodreads to make sure every book I've reviewed on the blog is also posted there. Aside from that, I've caught up with all current reviews.

Last, I wanted to continue my writer's block post series. Clearly, that has not happened. I'm just going to accept that those posts take a ton of time for me to write, and they'll be coming slowly. Right now, I would rather write then talk about writer's block. That's not to say they won't continue - they will, it will just take more time than I originally thought.

I want to hear about your month!

Did anything great happen? What is your absolute favorite book you read this month? If you're a writer, what are you working on? 

May TBR & Goals

I had a couple of great reading months in March and April, so I'm really hoping that lasts into May. There are so many books on my TBR that I want to read right now, so it was difficult to pull a list together, but here are some things I hope to read in the next month!

TBR

Snow Like Ashes by Sara Raasch

I have already started this as an audiobook, but plan on finishing the book in May. It's started off very well, although I'm not very far into it, and I can't wait to see where the story goes.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

I'm reading this one so slowly. I can't remember the last time a book took me more than two weeks to read, and yet I started this one about that long ago and am half-way through. I plan to focus on finishing this either the 

first or second week of May, so I can finally be done with it!

Joyride by Anna Banks

This one was on my April TBR as well, but I will definitely get to it this month! If all goes well, it should be my next read after The Night Circus.

The Summer of Chasing Mermaids by Sarah Ockler

This is another that I have to read this month, since it's a review copy. (Both this and Joyride release on June 2nd.) Hopefully if I can get these two read early in the month, I can read some other review copies and try to catch up on later releases as well, but we'll see how it goes.

Goals

• Stay caught up on others' blog posts, and replying to comments on my own blog. I have been pretty consistent with this the past week or so, and hope to continue that throughout May.
• Be more consistent posting reviews to Goodreads and Tumblr. While I do post my reviews to my accounts on those sites as well, I forget a lot and end up posting them later than planned! I want to do much better from now on.
• Finish my 'Writer's Block' posts. Since talking about them in my last monthly goals, I've only managed to get one of these posts up. I really want to finish the ones I have in mind and then possibly think of something else writing-related to post here on the blog.

What do you plan to read this month? Do you have any blogging or reading goals? Have you read any of the books on my TBR? Talk to me in the comments!

In April...

It's amazing to me that April is nearly over. Many people say this every month, and I really try not to ... But this past month went by so quick. It was also really great, and although I can't say I was the best blogger recently, I did get a ton of reading and writing done!

In April, I read 6 books.

• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling | No review
• The First Part Last by Angela Johnson | No Review
• Perfect Lies by Kiersten White | My Review
• Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater | No Review (But this series is fantastic!)
• The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin | Review coming very soon!
• Beauty Queens by Libba Bray | Review

I did ... okay with my monthly goals.

It took me until the end of the month and I cheated by clicking "mark all as read" on Bloglovin', but I am now caught up again on blog posts and have begun working through them daily again, instead of leaving them sit there unread all the time!

I also prescheduled posts for about half the month ... Then kind of forgot. So I get half points there!

And I posted the first in that series of writing tips I was talking about, which is about writer's block. If you missed it, you can check it out here!

How was your month? Did anything super exciting happen? Did you read a lot?

In March...

I only read one book from my TBR this month, but I read a lot of others! Like I said, I'm not disappoiSorry this post is coming late, but here I am to tell you guys how badly I did with my March goals! I don't feel bad about it, because I said in that post that I probably would not follow my TBR due to a reading slump. I've found my way out of that slump, finally, so overall I'm pretty happy with how this month went.

This month, I read 7 books.

• The Last Time We Say Goodbye by Cynthia Hand | My Review
• Past Perfect by Leila Sales | My Review
• A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray | Review coming in April!
• Mind Games by Kiersten White | Review coming in April!
• The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater | No review - but definitely 5 stars!
• The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater | Same as book one
• I Heart You, You Haunt Me by Lisa Schroeder | No review

I only read one book from my TBR this month, but I read a lot of others! Like I said, I'm not disappointed in this month's reading at all. Hopefully this continues and I don't hit another reading slump for a long, long time.

I did complete my goals for this month!

Granted, they were pretty simple goals. I wanted to write posts that felt more unique, rather than so many memes like Top Ten Tuesday, Waiting on Wednesday, etc. I also wanted to stop stressing when it comes to blogging - and I actually managed that pretty well!

Let me know how March was for you.

Did you accomplish any blogging goals? What is your favorite book that you read last month?

In February...

Hello! Since I started doing monthly TBR and goal posts, I thought I should have a feature at the end of the month to share with you guys how things went! I'm basically going to talk a little bit about the month -- things I've done, whether I accomplished my goals, and I'm also going to include a book haul for the month at the end. In the future I might break this up into a couple different posts, or change the format, but for now I'm going to try it out this way!

I read 4 books in February.

• I Was Here by Gayle Forman | My Review
• Sweethearts by Sara Zarr | Review Soon!
• Twist by Karen Akins | ARC - Review Late Next Month!
• The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma | ARC - Review Late Next Month!

I did not complete my TBR, but I did read two books that weren't on my list. Overall, I think it was an okay reading month! 

I did make progress in A World Without Princes, which is the only book on my TBR that I didn't finish, but then I put it on hold again. While it's not a bad book, I've been picky about my reading lately (still in a slump!) and I decided to come back to it when I'm more in the mood.

I did not complete my goals for the month.

My first goal was to get some different follow buttons for the side bar which I did do -- I actually managed to change the entire layout, which was way more than I planned for the month.

My second goal was to have at least three writing related posts, which also did not happen at all. In fact, I had a total of zero writing posts this month, mostly due to the awful writing/reading/blogging slump I've been in. I'll do better next month!

I purchased 3 books this month, and received none for review.

I did not do bad at all when it comes to getting new books! I also read two out of my three purchased books this month. Aside from I Was Here and Sweethearts (Goodreads links above), I also bought To All The Boys I Loved Before by Jenny Han, which I have not begun reading yet.

I also managed an entire month without requesting any review copies, and right now I only have three old ones left to read.