August Reading Wrap-Up

August Reading Wrap-Up!

Y'all this was a GOOD reading month! You already know that I participated in the BookTube-A-Thon and was successful at that, and then during the rest of the month I read one of my new favorites, reread some old favorites, and read an honestly terrible book. I also DNF'd The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. The bad did not keep me down though! I was able to read 11 books this month overall! My reading may have to slow down for a little while because I started grad school classes this past week and will be busy with school work, but I really hope that I'm able to keep reading for fun, at least a little. ~Em

 For the BookTube-A-Thon I read this book to fulfill the challenge of "Read a book and watch the movie adaptation." It was my first Agatha Christie book and it was a good reading experience! I related to the detective, Hercule Poirot, for his need for orderliness and structure. I wasn't expecting the results of the mystery and had an enjoyable reading experience. I watched the new Murder on the Orient Express adaptation and though it was different from what actually happened in the book, it was an enjoyable movie as well! Rating: 3/5

 I read this book for the challenge of "Read a book with green on the cover." It is the sequel to Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie, which I read last summer. It follows Jeff, the main character from the first book's younger brother, who survived leukemia. Jeff has some trouble learning because of his treatment and all he wants to do is conquer his disability and graduate the 8th grade. I liked this sequel better than the first novel. It was funny, heart-wrenching, and just an overall good read. Rating: 4/5

 Y'all, I loved this book. I read it to fulfill the "book with a beautiful spine" challenge during BookTube-A-Thon. The book is about Liz who is transitioning into being a guy named Gabe. Gabe loves music and his neighbor helps get an hour as a DJ on a community radio show every Friday night. Gabe starts to get a fan base, but some hateful people try to tear him down when they find out that he's transsexual. I loved all of the music references and the representation for the LGBTQIAP+ community. Rating: 5/5

 This was another great read for me! It completed the challenge to "read seven books." The main character, Molly, has had 25 unrequited crushes and when her sister gets a girlfriend, she starts to feel like she may never have someone like her back. But then, it seems that two different guys are interested in her. Molly has to decide what she truly wants and find out where her heart lies. This was another book full of great representation and it was absolutely adorable. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Becky Albertalli knows how to write teenage characters SO WELL. Rating: 5/5

 This graphic novel fulfilled the challenge of "read a book while wearing the same hat the whole time." It's about two guys who just question the logic and reasoning behind everything. Some bits were funny but it just wasn't really for me. Rating: 2/5

 This is the sequel to Burned, which I reread last month. I can't really say anything about it or else I would spoil the whole book.  After reading this one, I think I'm going to stop reading Ellen Hopkins books.They deal with tough topics, which is not the real problem, but everything that could possibly go wrong to these characters does. These books are super dramatic and generally don't tend to be very hopeful. I'm glad that I finished this duology, but I most likely won't read anymore of this authors books in the future. Rating: 3/5

 When I heard that Scott Westerfeld was releasing a subseries of the Uglies I got super excited and decided to reread the original four books. The first time I read these was probably when I was about 12 years old. In this dystopian world, people are considered "Ugly" until they are able to get an operation at 16 to make them "Pretty." The main character, Tally, is about to turn 16 is extremely excited to get the surgery, until she meets a girl named Shay who has different ideas about the operation. I didn't remember very much about these books and as I was reading I realized how much I really didn't remember. It was a fun experience to reread this first book but I found myself annoyed with how wishy-washy Tally, the main character is. Rating: 6/10

 Ok guys this was the terrible book I read. I have a list of 52 reading challenges to complete before the end of the year and one of them was to "read a book with bad reviews." So I found this book and it was just incredibly bad. For starters, if you don't know what a "rainbow party" is, I wouldn't recommend finding out. Let's just say it's gross. There are so many toxic things in this book. To name a few, there are manipulative friendships throughout the whole story, a girl who tries to host this party in order to break people up so they can "see what else is out there," and there is so much sexist content. There are plenty of other problems that I won't rant about here but just know it's bad. Rating: 2/5

 This book was super weird. It's about the Cresswell family, who are super cult-y Christians. They believe that God designated their family to be the only ones who will be able to enter Heaven. Their father writes this book that they treat like doctrine. Castella, one of the daughters in this family, begins to see through these strange beliefs and starts to question why they believe in these things. The book was hard to read because I don't agree with the beliefs that they held and the father was abusive to the children. I guessed what was going to happen before the end so it was just a mediocre read for me. Rating: 3/5

 Y'all this book right here is SO DARN GOOD. I listened to the audiobook on Scribd and the narrator, Christian Coulson, did such a great job at bringing these characters to life. The story is about Henry "Monty" Montague. He is supposed to inherit his father's estate eventually, but he is reckless and uninterested in being a proper gentleman. In a last ditch effort, Monty's father allows him to go on a grand tour of Europe with his best friend, Percy, who Monty happens to be in love with, and his sister, Felicity. Along the tour they run into quite a bit of trouble and have to get creative in order to get themselves out of it. Another book with great representation and it was laugh-out-loud hilarious. Rating: 5/5

The last book I read this month was Pretties, in continuation of my reread of this series before the subseries comes out. I can't say a lot about this book without spoiling the ending of the first one. As I mentioned when talking about the first book, at 16 people in this world get an operation to make them pretty. When they are turned pretty though, the only things they are interested in are parties, alcohol, and being part of a clique. Reading from the perspective of Pretties was incredibly annoying and it's hard to state that as a negative because they are supposed to come off that way. Westerfeld created a bunch of words that Pretties use that just drive me crazy reading them over and over. So for most of the story I was annoyed at the characters but the ending to this one really gripped me. I thought I didn't remember anything from the first book, but I REALLY didn't remember anything from this one. Rating: 3/5