Third July Wrap Up

This week I only managed to finish one book and it was a struggle. I read Seven Seasons of Buffy compiled by Glenn Yeffeth. This was a collection of essays from multiple authors. This fulfilled one of my Read Harder Challenges. Essays are definitely not my jam. I find it jarring to switch between author voices every 10 pages or so. There were some essays I hated (they came across as incredibly sexist or fat-shaming) and other essays I truly enjoyed. However, it took me 20 days to read 205 pages and most of the time I just wanted to quit. So for those reasons, I rated it 2 out of 5 stars. The good essays did make me want to re-watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer though.

Midway Check in on my Read Harder Challenge

Read Harder Challenge: 20/24 completed

Prompt	Title
A classic of genre fiction	1984
A comic written and drawn by the same person	My Friend Dahmer
A book set in or about a BRICS country	Sold
A comic written and drawn by a person of color	Persepolis
A children’s classic published before 1980	The Secret Garden
An Oprah book selection	An American Marriage
A one-sitting book	Down Among the Sticks and Bones
The first book in a new-to-you YA or middle grade series	The Golden Compass
A sci fi novel with a female protagonist by a female author	A Closed and Common Orbit
A comic that isn’t published by Marvel, DC, or Image	Seconds
A book of genre fiction in translation	Inkheart
A book with a cover you hate	Everything I Never Told You
A book with a female protagonist over the age of 60	The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
A book of true crime	Killers of the Flower Moon
A celebrity memoir	Where am I Now?
A romance novel by or about a person of color	The Wedding Date
A western	O Pioneers!
A book of social science	Evicted
A book published posthumously	A Death in the Family
A mystery by a person of color or LGBT+ author	The Wonder
A book about nature
An assigned book you hated (or never finished)
An essay anthology
A book of colonial or post colonial literature

Again, if you have any suggestions for the last four, I'd love to hear them!

Midway Check-in on my Popsugar Reading Challenge

This is a bit late but I thought I'd share where I am with my Popsugar reading challenge.

Popsugar Challenge: 33/40 Completed

Prompt	Title
A Book made into a movie you’ve already seen	How to Train Your Dragon
The Next Book in a Series you’ve started	Saga Volume 8
A novel based on a real person	El Deafo
A Book set in a country that fascinates you	In Order to Live
A Book about death or grief (NOV)	We are the Ants
A Book with alliteration in the title	Red Rising
A book with an animal in the title	Bird Box
A book set on a different planet	A Brief History of Time Lords
A book with characters who are twins	Down Among the Sticks and Bones
A Book with a LGBTQ+ protagonist	The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
A book by a person of a differing ethnicity as you	Everything I Never Told You
A book by a local author	Sex Criminals
A Book that is published in 2018	The Immortalists
A Book set in the decade you were born	1984
A Book you meant to read in 2017 but didn’t	Dark Matter
A book you can finish in 1 day/Been on TBR too long	Heartburn
A Book about or involving a sport	Beartown
A Book mentioned in another book	Persepolis
A Book from a Celebrity book Club	An American Marriage
A Childhood Classic you Never Read	The Secret Garden
A book you borrowed or was given as a gift	The Heart’s Invisible Furies
A Book with a time of day in the title	Midnight for Charlie Bone
True Crime	Killers of the Flower Moon
A book with song lyrics in the title	Sleeping Giants
A book about mental health	Lighter than my Shadow
A Book about a villain or antihero	The Girl in 6E
A book with an ugly cover	O Pioneers!
A book by two authors	Good Omens
A Book about Time Travel	Charlie Bone and the Time Twister
A Book with a weather element in the title
A book about or set on Halloween	Paper Girls Volume 1
A book that is also a stage play or musical	And Then There Were None
A past Goodreads Choice Awards Winner	Little Fires Everywhere
A Book with your favorite color in the title	Oranges are not the Only Fruit

A book about feminism

A Book involving a Heist

A book with a female author who uses a male pseudonym

A Book set at Sea

Nordic Noir

A book that involves a bookstore or library Bonus Round  7/10 Completed

-An Allegory	The Golden Compass
-A book by an author with the same first/last name as me	Allegedly
-A book about a problem facing society today	The Hate U Give
-A book recommended by someone else doing the Popsugar Challenge	A Closed and Common Orbit
-A Book with a fruit/veggie in the title	The House on Mango Street
-A book tied to your ancestry	The Home for Unwanted Girls
-A book being read by a stranger in a public place	A Man Called Ove
-A Microhistory
-A Cyberpunk Book
-A BestSeller from the Year you Graduated H.S.

If you have any suggestions for ones still remaining, I'd love to hear them.

July Wrap up 2

Oh my gosh! I've been so busy lately. I've also been reminded how much I hate packing. I'm seriously considering just giving away everything so I don't have to pack anymore. Reasonable?

However, I've managed to read three more books. (Audiobooks for the win!)

The first was The Book of Essie by Megan Mclean Weir. I had put a hold on this from my library and it became available. (This was a physical book, not audio.) I contemplated just giving up my spot in line and getting at the back but I realized I'd have to wait 4 months if I did that so I decided to give it a go. I read this book in 2 days. The book is about Essie, a famous reality star known for her religious family. She gets pregnant and the book is about her figuring out what to do. While not particularly literary, it was gripping and an entertaining read. Trigger warnings for rape. I gave the book 4 stars.

The second was an audiobook of a children's classic I had never read: The Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell. This focused on a girl, surviving alone on an island. It kept my interest, but I definitely would have been more enthralled with her story of survival as a child. I picked this up to fulfill one of my reading challenges "a story on the sea" but ultimately decided it didn't qualify. I gave the book 3 stars.

The third book I listened to was Final Girls by Riley Sager. This was a slow start. (Not super promising for a thriller.) But the characters were interesting and there was enough of a mystery that I wanted to keep reading. The last third was action-packed and definitely contained some twists I didn't see coming. Overall I enjoyed the plot but the writing was redundant and not anything special. I probably won't pick up his other book. I gave the book 3 stars.

July Week 1 Wrap Up

Well, I'm back from vacation during which I was able to read two books. However, they were two I wasn't expecting on reading. I started I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh but after about 15 pages, it just wasn't holding my attention. So I picked up random books.

The first one I finished was The Diviners by Libba Bray. This is a historical fiction and paranormal book. This is not typically my genre but I found it a fun and compelling read. The book is set in 1920s New York about people with special abilities called the diviners. They work together to get rid of an evil threat which is murdering people in a ritualistic way trying to bring about the apocalypse. It kept me on the edge of my seat and was very creepy. I found the 20's slang to be a little annoying and over the top, but overall, I rated this book 4 stars. I'm eager to pick up the next one.

The second book I finished was The Wonder by Emma Donaghue. I've read her first book Room and enjoyed that so I had high hopes for this one. This is a historical fiction book set in the 1850s in Ireland about a little girl who doesn't eat. The village people think it is a miracle that she is subsisting on "manna from Heaven" and arrange for two nurses to watch her around the clock to prove she isn't eating. I was enjoying it for a while, then started to find it a little repetitive and tedious, but then in the last third, there were a lot of surprises which captured my attention.  It was amusing but in a horrifying and saddening way. Overall, I gave the book 3 stars.

Now, I start packing and moving. I'll try to update what I read but it'll probably be sporadic.