You guys, I have no idea what is going on but July is officially the third great reading month for me? And I am not going to include the books I read during the booktube-a-thon in this post, as I have a separate one going up next week all about my experience and what I read. But before I ramble on too much and this post gets way too long – I even had to take out my book haul for this month because I kind of went a bit overboard and bought too many books – let’s jump into the six books I read before the booktube-a-thon started the last full week of July!
Books I Read
The Nearest Faraway Place by Hayley Long
I was approved for an eARC of The Nearest Faraway Place pretty last minute (aka about two weeks before the release date) so I was just a little bit stressed about getting to it, but luckily I finished this book really quickly! This ended up being such a nice start into my July reading month – I couldn’t be happier that this book started things off for me! I did write a review for this on the blog, so please click here to check it out and if it sounds interesting to you, make sure you get it too! Show the author some support!
Every Heart A Doorway By Seanan McGuire
Every Heart A Doorway was my second read this month and a really quick one too since the book comes in at just under 170 pages! While I did enjoy this story, I really wanted to explore all of the different worlds the characters had traveled to before ending up at the school! But I am still very interested in reading Down Among The Sticks And Bones (which is a prequel) and I hope that we’ll get to experience at least one of the fantasy worlds in that book! You guys can check out my review on Goodreads where I talked a little bit more about my feelings regarding this book!
Simon VS The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli
Some of you guys might know that I read Becky’s The Upside Of Unrequited earlier this year and that I didn’t like it as much as everyone else seemed to, which originally lead to me not being interested in any of Becky’s other works. But then I decided to give Simon VS The Homo Sapiens Agenda a try on Audible and I fell absolutely in love with this book! I quickly found myself unable to stop reading the story! I had developed this need to know immediately who Blue would turn out to be (even though I had somewhat spoiled myself unknowingly) and the payoff was so worth the night of no sleep! And now that I’ve finished this? I am definitely open to reading more of Becky’s books in the future and I’m actually excited about her book revolving around Leah! I did review this book on Goodreads, so please click here to check it out!
When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon
The beginning of July was definitely rather heavy on contemporary books as I picked up When Dimple Met Rishi on Audible once I finished Simon! After hearing so much about this book earlier in the year I was definitely super excited to finally get started on this and I was not disappointed! I really loved Dimple and Rishi as characters and seeing their opposite personalities come face to face was really fun! As with Simon, I pretty much finished this book in one day because I just couldn’t stop listening to it! I was absolutely hooked and so in love with all of the rom-com elements, this story threw at me! And the Bollywood references! I used to love watching Bollywood movies so it was definitely great to see them in this story too! I also reviewed this book on Goodreads, so please check that one out here!
The Gentleman’s Guide To Vice And Virtue by Mackenzie Lee
To be quite honest, I shouldn’t even have picked up The Gentleman’s Guide To Vice And Virtue because I have actual ARC copies waiting to be read but I just didn’t feel like picking them up and instead wanted to read something I chose. I’ve seen this book pretty much everywhere since it was released and wanted to know what the hype was all about, so I randomly picked it up and read it. To be honest with you guys, I was a bit disappointed by it though. This book started out so great and I really loved reading it and Monty was just hilarious but the closer I got to the end the less I seemed to enjoy it? And I still don’t really know why? I did try and make sense of it in my review on Goodreads but I didn’t get too far there either. Maybe time will tell! But I’m still really glad I read this book!
Eliza And Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia
Eliza And Her Monsters was such a spur of the moment decision to read and I am really, really glad that it happened! I wasn’t feeling like watching Netflix or YouTube, writing blog posts or do anything else really, so I figured I would see if I was in the mood to read. Turns out, I was absolutely in the mood to read and I didn’t stop until I had finished at 1:30 AM! I really loved the writing, I was a big fan of the art work that is included in this book, fandom was portrayed so, so well in this, internet friendships were done so right and explained so well to the reader and lastly, I really liked the journey Eliza went on throughout this story. This was definitely 7 hours very well spent and I would absolutely suggest you pick this book up – especially if you love fandom and the internet in general! Please, if you think about picking this book up, be aware that suicide is brought up multiple times in this book – both in the past and present.
As with a couple of other books this month, I reviewed Eliza And Her Monsters on Goodreads, which you can check out here!
What I Posted
July was another really fun blogging month and I want to share some of my favorite posts with you guys in case you haven’t seen them yet!
- 8 Tips For New Bloggers – Sandra and I have been blogging for quite a while now and I thought it would be fun to share some of the things I’ve learned on the way
- Monthly TBRs And Why You Never See Me Do Them – I talked a bit about my problems with set TBRs
- How BookTube Influenced My Blogging – I got a bit more open about the things that have influenced my blogging – mainly BookTube
- On The Insta-Love Trope – I read a book that got me all worked up about insta-love, so I decided to blog about it!
- 8 Best Books Of 2017 – So Far! – With 2017 being more than halfway over, I figured it was about time to reflect on my favorite books so far
- 5 Popular 2017 Releases I Haven’t Read Yet – And since I was already reflecting on my reading year, I figured it was time to have a look at all the popular books I haven’t read – yet!
What was you guys’ July like? Did you read some books you just couldn’t get enough of? Did you read books you just wanted to throw across the room – for whatever reason?
What were some of you guys’ favorite posts you’ve written this month? Share them in the comments below – I feel like I missed out on quite a few this month!
The Caffeinated Bookworm Life 
Oh, I read Eliza and Her Monsters this month as well! It was SO SO good aghaghahgag. ❤ I'm so glad you enjoyed Simon Vs! It's one of my favorite contemporaries ever. And Gentleman's! You know I'm reading it right now and gosh I love it so much. :') I'm glad July was such a good reading month for you! 😀
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It really was! So many great contemporaries this month!
Thank you, May! Did you have a good reading month too?
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Yeah, I had a pretty good one! I mean I DNF’ed two but the other books I read were great. 😛
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I’m really happy to hear that!
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I got Eliza and Her Monsters and When Dimple Meet Rishi this month but have yet to read them. I have heard great things about Every Heart a Doorway, I find the concept really interesting, I have been hearing a lot about it lately and I have been thinking that I should give it a try sometime soon.
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You should absolutely give it a chance! It’s such a great concept and I can’t wait to read the next book hopefully this weekend! 😀
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I also read Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda this month and absolutely loved it! I’m glad you’ve been having such great reading months 🙂 I’m kind of picking up some pase as well.
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Thank you, Nikki! I’m happy to hear you’re doing better as well! 😀
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You read so many books this month and almost all of them are books I want to read, too! I actually just borrowed the audiobook of When Dimple Met Rishi from my library, too. I have no idea how that will work out though because I’ve never been able to actually get through an audiobook, haha. We’ll see! I hope August is another great reading month for you 🙂
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I had the same problem when I listened to my very first audiobook because I would never give myself enough time to actually get into the story – I would usually listen to it while walking to my parents’ which is about 20 minutes from me and that just wasn’t enough to really get into things. But once I actually sat down and just LISTENED for longer periods of time, it worked much better and I started to really enjoy my audiobook!
The thing I really loved about listening to the audiobook for When Dimple Met Rishi is the fact that I wasn’t mispronouncing things that were in the characters native tongue. There are multiple occasions when characters aren’t speaking in English and there would’ve been no way for me to properly pronounce any of it! I hope you end up enjoying this book and finish the audiobook!
Thank you, Kourtni! I hope you have a great August too!
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That could very well be the reason why I haven’t been able to get into them either. I would usually try and listen while walking to class or work which at most took about 20 minutes.
That’s one of the reasons why I decided to try the audiobook, haha. I hate not knowing if I’m pronouncing things correctly (especially when the words are actual words from another culture/language and not made up fantasy terms or something), so I figured the audiobook would help me avoid that. Hopefully I’ll be able to get myself to stick with this one!
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I find it so interesting that you got less interested in Gentleman’s Guide towards the end because I was enjoying it the whole time, but got even more invested towards the ending!
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I honestly don’t understand why I ended up feeling that way! I was really, really enjoying it for the longest time and then everything just went a bit downhill! xD
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I read Eliza and Her Monsters this month and it has become one of my favourites of the whole year! Eliza was just so relatable to me. I’m in the middle of the Gentleman’s Guide and I have been for a week because I have no motivation to read it. I’m gonna try again though because everyone else seems to enjoy it but I’m glad you’re not a huge fan either, it’s not just me haha!
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I have found someone who isn’t a huge fan of it, finally! 😀 This has me really excited! Though I do hope you’ll be able to finish it at least – even if it doesn’t become your favorite book! 🙂
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