Month In Review: July 2019

July turned out to be an uneventful month and with the cold winter weather I’ve been spending lots of time cooped up instead in the company of a steaming cup of tea or coffee, a purring cat and of course the obligatory book or my kindle. With the result I managed to read a LOT! More about that below… I was also lucky enough to receive a copy of the children’s book Física Hasta En La Sopa by Hernán Grecco early July through the Masa Crítica Argentina program at Babelio, and I had a lot of fun reading it! As it’s not on Goodreads I won’t count it toward my read books this year, but in case you are interested, you can find a full review (in Spanish) here.

I also enjoyed my time baking (featured below my fruit-custard pie and ‘sunset swirl’ lemon bites), preparing homemade stuffed pasta (sorrentinos!) to freeze and other kitchen related things… My second-favorite thing to do after reading. 😉 And some of the bulbs in our garden are having flowers early this year and I love the little touch of Spring in the air! ❤

Now to the bookish numbers:

• Number of books read in July: 21
• Total number of books read this year: 156
• Total number of pages read in July: 7.970
• Total number of pages read this year: 52.114

July turned out to be an excellent reading month despite another DNF, and I found myself not one, not two, but THREE new 5 star reads! On top of that, FOUR other fantastic titles were given the almost perfect rating… Oh yes, I definitely got lucky last month.

JULY READS

5 STARS: Absolutely and entirely mind blowing! I suggest you to pick up a copy now.

The Boy Who Steals Houses – by C.G. Drews // The Puppet Show – by M.W. Craven // The First Girl Child – by Amy Harmon

4.5 STARS: This one was almost perfect. Surely fantastic! 

The Silent Ones – by K.L. Slater // The Closer I Get – by Paul Burston // Her Silent Cry – by Lisa Regan // Block 46 – by Johana Gustawsson

4 STARS: Wow, this was really good. Close to amazing!

House Of Furies – by Madeleine Roux // Where The Crawdads Sing – by Delia Owens // The Escape Room – by Megan Goldin // The Silent Patient – by Alex Michaelides // The Rose & The Dagger – by Renee Ahdieh

3.5 STARS: Great read. Really entertaining!

Poirot Investigates – by Agatha Christie // Harry Potter Y La Orden Del Fénix – by J.K. Rowling // Small Spaces – by Katherine Arden // Pretty Girls – by Karin Slaughter

3 STARS: It was a nice read, but not fantastic.  

Tiger Lily – by Jodi Lynn Anderson

2.5 STARS: I give this one the benefit of the doubt. Nothing too exciting.

Trance – by Adam Southward // Ivory And Bone – by Julie Eshbaugh // Along The Broken Bay – by Flora J. Solomon

0 STARS (DNF): I didn’t even bother to finish this one. Either horrible or definitely not for me!

The Dark Descent Of Elizabeth Frankenstein – by Kiersten White

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I have quite a few challenges going on in 2019, but I feel all have doable goals I’m managing to work on without trying too hard. Things are well on track so far in general, and I managed to finish a couple of challenges already! I reached my Goodreads goal quite early in the year and I’m wondering right now if I should up my goal to 200 books… I’ve also managed to finish my Netgalley challenge by surpassing the 50 NG ARCs mark and I finished the Author part of my ABC challenge! And I have no doubt that I’ll be able to finish both the Beat The Backlist challenge  and the Title ABC challenge before the end of August…

# CHALLENGES #

• • Goodreads 2019 Reading Challenge: 150/150 DONE!!!
  • 2019 Beat The Backlist Challenge: 48/50 books read published in 2018 or 2017 and 52/30 books read published 2016 or before. A total of 100/80 books.
  • 2019 Beat The Backlist Epic BTB Bingo: 79/81 books read
  • Reading Through The Centuries: 1/5 
  • 2019 Netgalley And Edelweiss Challenge: 50/50 DONE!!!
  • 2019 When Are You Reading?: 11/12 
  • Double Trouble ABC Challenge: TITLE 24/26 // AUTHOR 26/26 DONE!!!

As for my other goals… Things are going better than expected, and I managed to keep my ARC/backlist ratio below 40% for the second month in a row… And I finished my second (and third) Spanish read! I’m almost finished with my international authors/translations and will most likely finish that goal before the end of this month… And my series and TBR jar goals are looking good as well. My TBR pile in general is pretty hopeless though haha.

# OTHER READING/BLOGGING GOALS #

• Read at least 3 (modern) classics (rereads don’t count) 3/3 DONE!! (The Painted Veil // The Big Sleep // A Wrinkle In Time)
• Complete at least 10 series (rereads don’t count) 7/10 (Anastasia Phoenix // The Conqueror’s Saga // Women Are Some Kind Of Magic // Fire And Thorns // The Collector // Beartown // The Wrath And The Dawn)
• Reread at least 2 books 2/2 DONE!! (The BFG // Harry Potter Y El Caliz De Fuego)
• Bring my physical TBR pile below 450 books and keep it that way. 596/450
• Read at least one book over 800 pages 1/1 DONE!! (813 pages; Colombiano)
• Keep ARC/backlist title ratio below 40% 39,1%
• Read at least 2 books in Spanish 2/2 DONE!! (Harry Potter Y El Cáliz De Fuego // Harry Potter Y La Orden Del Fénix)
• Read at least 1 book in Dutch 1/1 DONE!! (Alles Is Breekbaar)
• Read at least 15 international authors and/or translations  14/15 (Mala Vida (France) // The Painted Veil (France) // When Dimple Met Rishi (India) // And Every Morning The Way Home Gets Longer And Longer (Sweden) // The Courier (Norway) // The Travelling Cat Chronicles (Japan) // The Murmur Of Bees (Mexico) // Bright Burning Stars (France) // Trouble Makes A Comeback (Philippines) // Wolves At The Door (Norway) // The Secret Diary Of Hendrik Groen (The Netherlands) // Us Against You (Sweden) // Block 46 (France) // The Silent Patient (Cyprus))
• Read at least 10 TBR jar picks 7/10 (The Insect Farm // The Shattering // Be Frank With Me // Tell The Wolves I’m Home // Sweetheart // The Dead Girls Of Hysteria Hall // The Problem With Forever)
• Join at least 5 challenges during the year 5/5 DONE!!
• Keep my Netgalley ratio above the 80% 98%

Happy August and Happy Reading! 

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