July 2015

July was a busy month! As you may or may not know, the Pan American Games were held in my native country, Canada and more specifically they were near my hometown so I just had to partake in the events! They were a lot of fun to attend and I was able to cross off some items on my bucket list (like attend a major sporting event, watch diving live and attend a Team Canada Women’s Soccer Game). When I wasn’t at the Games, I was blogging and watching highlights on the the TV (as limited as they were). I’m a huge Team Canada fan and I was so proud of all our athletes <3

But I also participated in my first readathon, #MakeMeRead It as well as a second one, Excuse to Readathon! They were/are (as the Excuse to Read is still going on) a lot of fun and I will definitely be participating in more in the future! Especially now that I have Twitter!

• 19 Books Read + 0 novellas
• 0 nonfiction novels
• 5 standalones (including 1 ARCs)
• 5 of books from TBR Jar
• Started 4 new series (including 2 ARCs)
• Finished 0 series from start to end
• Finished 1 previously started series
• Read sequels for 7 previously started series

Favourite Reads	Biggest Disappointment
★★★★★	★★★

*Note: just because I read a series/book this month doesn’t mean that the review was also published. Due to the nature of my blog (ie I review whole series) it often takes me a few weeks to publish a full review (pending book availability) so look forward to seeing some of these reviews in the upcoming weeks/months!

I didn’t purchase any NEW books as per my Tackling the TBR goals. Though I really should have bought that Cora Carmack book (Inspire) when it was on sale!

I did win some giveaways–for once!–though so I added a few books to my shelves 🙂 Many thanks Simon & Schuster Canada & Lola @Hit or Miss Books

    

And, I had some book series that I needed to complete so I also bought these books when I discovered Bookoutlet.com! (A bad thing to discover I think)

   

Most Viewed Post

My Introduction Post to the Make Me Read It Readathon! Thanks to everyone who voted! My results are further below! View this month’s archives for more posts & reviews!

Previously posted reviews I updated this past month:

I’m getting closer to my Goodreads goal a LOT faster than I expected! I thought with my new school program that I would have less time to read this year but apparently that isn’t the case. I honestly should have known better given last year’s 180% completion rate but I really didn’t think I would have a chance to read so much! But hey, reading too much is rarely a bad thing.

Though for someone who reads so much, I’m not doing an excellent job of completing my various challenges…

Book Bingo–Canadian: 1 books added
Everything YA Challenge: ✖ Mini Challenge + ✔ 2 YA reads
Goodreads Challenge: 18 books added (I’m 96% complete! I totally underestimated…)
Monthly Key Word Challenge: ✖ No words added
Prequel & Sequel Challenge: +30 points added (Goal 2 surpassed; new goal set!)
SERIESous’ Personal Classics Challenge: 0 books added (Currently 0/5)
SERIESous’ Personal Nonfiction Challenge: 0 books added (Currently 2/5)

View my Progress Here!

I participated in this readathon from July 20th – July 27th. It was my very first readathon and I had so much fun that I decided to do another one immediately after (The Excuse to Read–see below!)!

My Goal with this one was to read 5 of the 10 books you all voted for. I’m happy to say that I was able to do that: sneaking in a book within the last few hours to get 6/10. These were all TBRs I had on my Kobo (plus one on my Kindle) so I was really satisfied with this result!

     

Thank you to everyone who voted for those books! You did good 😉

My second readathon is the You’re Excused to Read Readathon. It worked out perfectly that this one started when the previous one ended PLUS I have a long weekend coming up, thus giving me an excuse to not do anything but sit outside and read. Details can be seen here but my goal is to read 7 books and so far I’ve read 2!

This is going to be a brief update considering I had a post dedicated to this topic earlier this month and I’ll be doing a full summary in September.

BUT I just had to share the awesome news that I only have 8 book on hold at the library! Now that may seem like a lot to some people but prior to my self-imposed restrictions in May, I had more than 30 books on hold at the library! So this is great news and means I am right on track with my Tackling the TBR goals! I feel so accomplished!

The idea behind the feature is to pit two books (or other themes) that are always compared to each other in a battle of three rounds to see who the winner is. Of course it is completely subjective to my own opinions so I added a poll feature to get your take on everything. Thanks to those who participated!

This month’s final poll results:

eBooks 2 | Physical Books 4  | Either 3

Next Battle: The Infernal Devices vs The Mortal Instruments

• I’m now on Twitter! Follow me and I will Follow YOU!
• I updated Recaps for A-F; G-L & M-R (Part of my Be a Better Blog CYOC goal).
  • I also now have a button on reviews for series that have a recap available (& a tag)
  • Anchored links now work on all pages and for all browsers!
• Series Reviews will now have an overall series rating plus a breakdown of its individual book ratings (this might not appear until late August for some post types).
• I’ve also started adding my social media links to the end of my reviews

• My new seasonal feature The Perfect Match returns for its Summer 2015 edition!
• Update the following:
  • review directories
  • Series Recaps for S-Z
• A blogroll page
• A Blogging 101 Guide – your typical tips/advice guide but with a greater focus on social media

I went to see Weird Al in concert this month which was fantastic! So I’ve decided to pick two of my favourites: Word Crimes and Smells Like Nirvana.

What were your biggest reading or personal accomplishments of the past month?
Leave a comment below!