Guys, I have been reading like crazy this month! At least compared to my typical reading habits this year of finishing roughly 1.5 books a month, July has been insane. Book snobs might comment that perhaps this is because I’ve pretty much only read YA / Middle Reader books this month. This is true. But I’ve also loved reading this month and it’s been awhile since I felt like I could say that honestly.

I just listened to an old podcast episode at the Lazy Genius Collective about improving your reading life and I pretty much spent the whole 20 minutes nodding my head and thinking, “Yes! This exactly!” So I’m reveling in this reading for the pure joy of loving to read thing and not feeling any guilt about what I’m reading and what quality of literature it is.

Here’s what that’s looked like for me in July:

Always and Forever, Lara Jean by Jenny Han

Finished July 12th

This one pretty much got by on nostalgia for me. It was oddly anticlimatic for most of the book because Lara Jean spent most of the story nope-ing right on out of any stressful situation. Guess how well that works out for her? Overall the book was perfectly fine but not as good as the first two. I am seriously excited to see the new Netflix adaptation of book one.

3 stars

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling

Finished July 12th

We listened to the audio book as a family during our last family road trip and it proved well worth a “re-read” – I think I enjoyed it more the second time around. This was my first time listening to an audio book of this series and I agree with the masses – Jim Dale is phenomenal at narrating the books and it’s well worth a listen.

5 stars

Gone Rogue (Wires and Nerve Vol. 2) by Marissa Meyer

Finished July 16th

This one is less recappy than the first one – it really delves into the story more and covers more ground. It kept me up late towards the end, wondering how everything would play out. I am still not sure if these graphic novels would stand alone without having read the original series but who would NOT read the original series? Seriously, go read Cinder right now!

4 stars

The Borrowers by Mary Norton

Finished July 19th

I read this out loud to the kids. The story was interesting but it was kind of a bear to read out loud, if I’m going to be honest. The first half is pretty slow and the whole books seems like it’s written with a bigger vocabulary than the target audience is likely to possess if only because of all of the outdated terms.

3 stars

From Twinkle, With Love by Sandhya Menon

Finished July 24

A very bingeable YA book. I stayed up late 3 nights in a row with this one (old person late, like 11pm). Well worth the general fatigue that this caused me. Sahlil will be your next book crush. Twinkle is both brilliant and kind of dumb – easy to relate to even in between wondering when teenagers became so driven so young – seriously I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life at their age!

4 stars

What have you been reading?