August 2018

What a jammed packed month this turned out to be! Between readathons and vacations, I had a lot on the go. So August was never a dull month (and if it was, I just DNF’d the book I was reading :P)

August was all about my personal TBR list (ie books I own) with the Make Me Read It Readathon and cleaning up some long overdue ARCs for the various Street Teams I’m a part of via ARC August. Overall, I had a great time with both challenges and accomplished what I wanted to do. (You can read my final recaps on each further down).

Otherwise, August was a little bit out of the norm for me. A lot of the books I’ve had my eye on purchasing went on sale (YAY!) so I bought more books in a one week span than I have all year, but the deals were too good to pass up. I had also imposed a “no borrowing from the library” ban on myself for the summer and I stuck with it (surprisingly). The only time I broke that was to get some specific books for my challenges.

Like I did last September, I will be exclusively reading series sequels for the month of September. I’ll list some of the books I plan to read below but the idea is only read books for series I’ve already started. This year, I’m alternating between series I’ve read over the years and series I just started this year.

Total for August 2018: 19 Books Read + 0 Novellas Read

DNF’d: 4 Books

Last August: 17 Books Read + 4 Novellas Read + 2 DNFs

Standout Read (★★★★★)

This book just blew me away! I loved every minute of it! It was like the perfect hybrid of some of my favourite Science Fiction/Dystopian novels.

Biggest Let Down (DNF)

I’ve had this ARC forever and the personal hype was high but I just couldn’t get into this story at all.

Most Viewed Post Monthly Inventory: July 2018	Most Viewed Review Blog Tour: The Right Fit
View this year’s archives for more posts and reviews!

 

Previously posted series reviews that got updates:

 

You can always get the full details on all my challenges on my dedicated page but here is a quick update:

5 Year 5 Book Challenge: The Cage & The Diabolic | 14 of 25 Titles Read – Slightly Behind
Goodreads Challenge: 19 books added | 169/190 Books – Ahead
52 Sequel Challenge: 4 Sequels | 29/52 Sequels – Slightly Behind
Tackling the TBR Challenge: 3 books added | 19/36 Books – Slightly Behind

View my Challenge Progress Here!

I’ve seen this meme floating around and thought it was a great idea to help me tackle my TBR list and reach that less than 500 goal. The idea is to go through 5-10 books on your Goodreads TBR list chronologically and decide if they should stay or go. I usually do a big Goodreads Purge twice a year but I like the idea of doing a little bit at a time and have decided to do this on a monthly basis.

This month (7 new to me series + 3 previously started series):

Pass: 4 | Keep: 6

Did I give up on any too soon? Let me know in the comments below!

 

My goal was to read 3 of the most voted for books during the readathon (and read the rest by the end of the year). Unlike last year, I managed to read all three books in the timeframe and complete my goal! I even attempted to read a 4th book from the list after the readathon but ended up DNFing it 🙁 But still, I’m really happy I managed to get meet my goal (and contribute to my other reading challenges in the process) and plan to get to the rest in October.

  

My goal for this challenge was to read a total of 6 ARCs and I ended up reading a total of 7 and DNF’d 2.

     

 

While this is a monthly meme hosted by Avalinah’s Books, I usually only update every quarter. However, since I participated in ARC August, I decided to do an update to see if the challenge had an impact on my ARC review status.

My Progress for January to August, 2018:

ARCs Read: 66  |   ARCs Overdue: 1*  |  Upcoming: 4+1(u)

(June’s State: ARCs Read: 54  |   ARCs Overdue: 2+6*  |  Upcoming: 7)

*One title was given to me as a member of an author’s street team to read ASAP.

(u) Unreceived ARC

Going Forward:

I’m really happy with the progress I made this month with my ARCs! It was great to get some of my backlogged titles out of the dust and read. I’ve done my best to stick to my limit of no more than 3 ARCs a month and have limited my review requests on my blog to only author’s I have reviewed in the past. Hopefully, I can maintain that for the rest of the year so I can concentrate on getting my reading challenges met for the year!

 

You can still join in on these discussions:

• SERIESous Spoilers: Warcross by Marie Lu
• SERIESous Discussion: Book Formats per Month
• SERIESous Tips: A List of Review Opportunity Groups

Here are some of my favourite posts that I’ve come across the past month:

• Dalindcy @ Books and Rants lists some of the Pros and Cons of Reviewing ARCs
• Bibi @ Bibi’s Book Blog discusses the Importance of Reviews
• Nandini @ Unputdownable Books outlines How to Decide What to Read Next
• Krysta @ Pages Unbound reexamines The Romance of the Grisha Trilogy
• Marty @ The Cursed Books teaches Reading Slumps 101
• Kelly @ Just Another Book in the Wall reminds us to Watch Verbs Tenses When Reviewing
• Aimee @ Aimee Always shares a Masterlist of Blog Post Topics You Can Write

 

September is all about the sequels! This upcoming month, I’ve decided to alternate between series I started before 2018 and series I’ve started in 2018 as well as alternating genre types (contemporary then non-contemporary). Of course, I’ve integrated some of the my other reading challenges with my picks. Here are some of the books I have ready to go for September:

     

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

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