August 2019 Wrap-Up

Posted On August 31, 2019

Hey everyone! As you can probably tell from the title, today I’m talking about all the books I read in August. I ended up completing four total books and starting a couple others. All of the books that I completed were during the first half of the month, before my life started getting crazy. Also, all but one of these books were read either partially or entirely as audiobooks, which is interesting to me because I very rarely read audiobooks.

Let’s just get into it, shall we?

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1. Wildcard by Marie Lu

This is one of the books I read for the Series Crackdown readathon at the beginning of the month. It’s also a book that I had been meaning to read since it came out, but I never got around to it. Honestly, I feel like the only reason I got around to it now was because I found the audiobook of it and I decided, why not?

I did enjoy it, though. Ratings for me are always a little unclear, but I would say it’s about a 3-star book. It was a fun read, and I didn’t have any major problems with it, but I didn’t love it the way I loved the first book in the duology.

I think I originally rated it 4 stars on Goodreads, and said something about it being a 4-star on Twitter, but that was right after I had finished the book, and I really need to stop trying to rate books right after I finish them. When I do that, I almost always skew the rating higher than it should be because I’m still riding the high of having finished the book, and I haven’t had time to really develop coherent thoughts on the book.

2. Caraval by Stephanie Garber

This is another book that I rated too soon and the rating got skewed because of that after-book high. I originally rated it a 4, but I’ve since bumped it down to 3 as well. I liked it, and I plan on reading the next book in the series at some point, but it’s not one of my all-time favorite books by any means. Also, and hopefully this doesn’t count as a spoiler, I really didn’t like the ending. That’s all I’m going to say right now, in case you haven’t read it.

I think the world was really cool, though, and I’m interested to learn more about it.

3. Windwitch by Susan Dennard

I’d always kind of been interested in reading Susan Dennard’s books, but after I discovered her Luminaries Twitter thread (It’s a choose-your-own-adventure thread that started like 3 months ago, and if you haven’t already, you should absolutely join in—here’s the link to the first entry, so you can get caught up and then vote in the latest poll), I fell in love with her storytelling, and I needed more.

Thus, in July, I picked up Truthwitch, and this month, I read the sequel, Windwitch. I didn’t like Windwitch quite as much as Truthwitch (though maybe that’s because I physically read Truthwitch and I listened to Windwitch), but it was still very good. I gave it 4 stars, and I’m hoping to be able to read the next book in the series soon—though considering how I haven’t read a single page in over a week, I’m not sure how likely that is to happen.

Anyway, I love this series so far. I love the characters so very much, and the world is so cool. The magic is cool too. All of it’s cool.

4. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

I’ve been meaning to reread the Percy Jackson series since I saw the musical back in May, and finally, this past month, I started it by reading The Lightning Thief. If you’ve seen my other posts, you know that I adore this book, and the series. This time was no different. Reading this book was like coming home.

It was also especially nice because I picked this book up during a pretty difficult part of the month and being with these characters I know so well comforted me a little. Obviously, this was 5 stars for me.

If you haven’t read Percy Jackson, I don’t know what you’ve been doing, but you need to get on that.

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Okay, that’s all the books I read in August! What did you read? Did you find any new faves? Any books you absolutely despised? Let me know down in the comments, or link me your August wrap-up and I’ll go give it a read/watch!

Thanks for reading, everyone! I’ll see you next time!

-Ariel