Hello Everyone!
Another month is over, so it is time to tell you all what I got read in the last four weeks of my life. I actually got a lot more read than I had originally expected as I went on holiday this month and had a whole lot of holiday homework to get started on, so I am thrilled with the amount I managed to get read! I haven’t really got anything else to say in the introduction this month though, so let’s just get into it:
Starfish by Akemi Dawn Bowman
I really loved this book! It contained representation for Asian-american people, social anxiety, divorce, sexual abuse and so much more. I will put trigger warnings on it for sexual abuse, suicide, emotional abuse and complicated family situations. If you have issues with any of those things then I recommend staying away from this book because they are big themes in the book and could be very triggering. I found that the emotional abuse in the book bothered me a little because it made me angry and was a bit too real for me, which is why I docked this book 1 star. However, the thing I really loved about this book was the representation of anxiety, race and the creativity. Both of the main characters are very creative people (artists and photographers) and I am also a very creative person, so it was really nice to read about two people who understood what it was like to use art as an escape and create things despite everything else. I loved the anxiety representation because I personally found it to be very accurate as I suffer with anxiety myself and I found the Asian-american representation to not only be refreshing to read about, but also very interesting and useful. I am white and British, so I don’t know what it is like to suffer from racism and I felt that this book taught be a lot as well as it just being a nice break from the usual white main characters.
4/5
The Periodic Table of Feminism by Marisa Bate
This is the first non-fiction book I read this month and I absolutely adored it! It was really easy to read because it was broken up into very small sections and was accompanied by lots of illustrations and quotes, which I appreciated because I can sometimes find non-fiction to be a bit challenging to read. What I really loved about this book though was how it made me feel. This book made me feel empowered and also angry. It highlighted the facts of exactly what was wrong with the world through the stories of these long forgotten women and it really inspired me to do something with my life and to make a change.
5/5
The Asperkid’s (secret) book of social rules by Jennifer Cook O’Toole
I am autistic. Some of you may know that, but a lot of you probably didn’t, but I suppose now you do and that simple fact is why I read this book. This is a book written by a lady with Asperger’s Syndrome for other people with Asperger’s and other types of autism. I absolutely flew through this book and I loved every part of it because I have never ever felt so understood in my entire life. Between the pages I found everything I have ever struggled to verbalize or explain written down for me and not only did it help me accept myself a bit more and learn some new coping strategies, but it has also helped the people in my life understand me more simply by me showing them this book. I am so grateful that this book exists and I highly recommend it to anyone, but especially to anyone else who is autistic themselves or knows someone who is.
5/5
Six of Crows duology by Leigh Bardugo
I absolutely adored this duology! Leigh Bardugo is officially one of my new favourite authors and I will read anything and everything she writes. I loved everything about these books: the plot, the characters, the relationships and the cliffhangers. I also really surprised myself because I actually loved the use of multiple different perspectives, which I usually hate because I find it confusing, but I thought it worked really well in these books and made the story even better. I will be doing a spoiler-free review on this duology, so if you want some more coheasive and in-depth thoughts stay tuned for that in a week or two.
5/5
The Language of Thorns by Leigh Bardugo
The Language of Thorns is a phenomenal book! I adored the writing style – it was so lyrical and enchanting and sounded just as a proper old fashioned fairy tale should sound like. The stories themselves were both wonderfully magical, but also had dark twists to them that taught you a lesson, which I really loved. They weren’t sugar coated, happily ever after fairy tales; they were proper twisted fairy tales like Grimm’s original fairy tales, which are my favourite kind. As much as I love a happy ending, sometimes they aren’t necessary and get in the way of the story being as successful as it could be. The tag line on the back of the book reads: “Love speaks in flowers. Truth requires thorn”. I think this is a perfect description to summarize the atmosphere and the purpose of the book. I love everything about this book, but I think my favourite story is probably ‘When Water Sang Fire’ or ‘Ayama and the Thorn Wood’. If you’ve read it which one is your favourite?
5/5
The Midnight Heir and The Course of True Love (and First Dates) by Cassandra Clare
I am sure most of you know by now that I love Cassandra Clare’s books, so it is no surprise that these were 4 and 5 star reads. These are two of the short stories from the Bane Chronicles bind up that they released in smaller hardback editions. I thought they would be cute, quick reads to fill in some time between books and to give me a bit of a break from the bigger books I have been reading lately and they did just that. They were both great and just what I wanted out of a Magnus Bane story also Malec is my OTP and I will literally go down with that ship!
4/5 and 5/5 respectively
Looking after your mental health by Alice James
This is quite a recent purchase that I decided to read one afternoon because I was bored. I was between books, but I wasn’t in the mood to pick up another heavy fiction, so I picked up this one and read it in one sitting. It was a very simple and quick read because it is aimed at younger readers (9-12), but it was still interesting to read and it was quite funny in some places.
3.5/5
Those were all of the books that I read in July! As I mentioned at the start, I read a lot more than I originally expected and I have also been reading a lot more non-fiction this month, which is very different for me. I think the reason I have managed to read quite a lot this month is because I have started reading more than one book at a time. I am still only reading one fiction book at a time because I get the plots of the books confused otherwise, but I have been reading a fiction and a non-fiction at the same time. Whatever the reason though I am still really happy with how many books I was able to read this month and I am still on track to complete my summer TBR before I go back to school in September. What have you read this month?
Before I go I just want to mention quickly that some of the books I finish in July will not be included in this wrap-up, but in a separate wrap-up that you will see in a week or two as I will be in the middle of a week long readathon as you read this. The readathon spans the last few days of July and the first few of August, so I will be doing a separate readathon wrap-up not only talking about the books I read, but my experience with the readathon as a whole, so look out for that and if you want to know more about the readathon as I am doing it, then check out my Instagram (@weeklybookcraft) where I will be updating you on my story.
Goodbye for now!
Over and Out
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