Reading Roundup: July 2023

A monthly round up seems to be the thing to do if you have a book blog, so I thought I’d give it a try!

I already rounded up my first six months of reading this year, and maybe we’ll go monthly too from here!

I actually read more than I thought in July.

• 1 eBook
• 3 audiobooks
• 1 womp-womp did not finish!
• 3 paperbacks (rare for me these days!)

1 eBook

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett 4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

This was great! An interesting bit of history that explores internalised racism and identity through generations.

3 Audiobooks (through my Library/BorrowBox)

The Confession by Jessie Burton 4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I read this mostly in those few days when we actually had some brief July sun, which after all the rain we had the last two weeks feels like a distant memory. I found a new spot to walk around, and I have memories of tramping about trying not to get lost in the woods while listening to this!

I was very happy to enjoy this one from Jessie Burton, which was similar to The Muse, after I’d DNF’s The Miniaturist earlier this year!

Troy by Stephen Fry 4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

This was my salve after getting so annoyed by The Song of Achilles! Stephen reminded me what Greek Mythology is meant to be. I did a lot of gardening with this on, I finished listening to it while I was furiously trying to dig out St Johns Wort roots!

Cat Lady by Dawn O’Porter 3/5 ⭐⭐⭐

My last book finished in July, this was just yesterday. It was another gardening listen (pull out more bloody St Johns wort!) but I also gave the shower a good clean!

1 paperback I could not finish!

The Song of Achilles by Madelline Miller 💀👎

I feel irrationally annoyed by how boring this book was after it felt like the entire internet can’t stop hyping it up. Perhaps more so than usual since I’d actually bought this in paperback and I so rarely buy paperbacks any more! At least it was out the bargain bin, only £3 pounds to be put to sleep for 154 pages before I decided life was too short.

3/4 of The Lunar Chronicles in paperback!

1. Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles #1) by Marissa Meyer
2. Scarlet (The Lunar Chronicles #2) by Marissa Meyer
3. Cress (The Lunar Chronicles #3) by Marissa Meyer

No reviews yet for these because I want to finished the whole series and do them all at once.

This is a reread after I originally read them around 2015. They’re just as fun as I remembered, it’s made me a little nostalgic for my school librarian days though I think I am now past my reading YA fiction phase. I’m half way through Winter right now and enjoying it, but also looking forward to getting back to something with real adult characters!

Adding to my TBR Collections

A couple of weeks ago I shared my full Master List of everything I bought on Kindle so far in 2023.

But for the sake of this round up, in July I bought on Kindle, all for 99p..

1. Dust (Silo Tilogy #3) by Hugh Howey – I had to complete the trilogy, now I have them all to start my reread!
2. The Road Trip by Beth O’Leary – I don’t know, sometimes I like a low effort rom-com and I didn’t totally hate The Flat-Share when I read it in 2020.
3. Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo – Apparently this has made some waves (according to its own blurb!), I’m always interested in a book about angry women pushing back against misogyny.
4. The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilology by Mervyn Peake – this has been in the back of my mind for about a decade after I saw an author talk about it in a documentary (I can’t remember what the documentary was about, I think the author was Sebastian Faulks though!). There is a fairly high chance I won’t get on with it but it was only 99p!
5. Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood – I’ve had my eye on this for a while, I want to explore some more Atwood.
6. A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers – very intrigued by this one, but fear it could be crap!
7. You and Me on Vacation by Emily Henry – loved Book Lovers!
8. Why Did You Stay? A memoir about self-worth Rebecca Humphries – the author was on the iWeigh podcast ages ago and I really enjoyed what she had to say.

I also bought a rare paperback from Waterstones of Before The Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. It was another bargain find from the reduced stock section – I’m excited for that one!

Overall not a bad month for reading but The Vanishing Half is easily the best thing that I read, and the one I mostly likely to remember.

I hope you had a good month! Have you ready any of these?