July Wrap-Up

The month of July was a weird month. I ended up completing 6 books, which is pretty good for me, but four of them were during the same week (the week of the Biannual Bibliothon) and only one of them was a book that was actually on my July TBR. So I guess I’m happy with myself, but I’m also disappointed with my inability to stick to the TBR I set for myself.

Anyway, even though I read 6 books, I’m only going to talk in depth about two of them, because I’ll be coming out with a full review for the each of four books I read during the readathon over the next few weeks (the first one went up on Saturday—it was for The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, in case you’re interested). Basically, this post is probably going to be pretty short, so let’s just get into it.

Save the Date by Morgan Matson

My Rating: 4/5 stars

This was the first book I read this month, and it was also the only book I read that was actually on my July TBR. So go me, I guess.

I really liked it. It’s about a girl named Charlie Grant who is the youngest sibling out of five. It follows her over a single weekend when her sister is getting married and all of her siblings come home for the first time in a long time. Charlie is trying to help plan for and set up the wedding, and pretty much everything that can go wrong does over the course of the weekend. It’s funny and cute, and I love the sibling relationships in this book. You can really tell how much Charlie cares about her family, and especially her sister. She goes to such drastic measures to make sure that the wedding goes off without a hitch, it’s pretty sweet. Plus, there were a couple moments in this book that were legitimately very funny, at least to me.

It’s a very good light, contemporary book. I usually don’t read much contemporary, but I really liked this one. The thing that kept it from 5 stars is that towards the end of the book, I started to get sort of bored. I don’t know if it was because I read this whole book in basically one day and my brain was just tired toward the end or if the story actually got boring, but I’m giving the book the benefit of the doubt and saying it was probably me. I still feel like I can’t give it a 5, though, so 4 stars it is.

The next four books are the ones I read during the readathon, so I’m just going to give my rating for each one and move on because, like I said, I’m doing a full review of each of these soon.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

4/5 stars

Scythe by Neal Shusterman

5/5 stars

The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton

4/5 stars

The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw

3.75/5 stars

Legend by Marie Lu

5/5 stars

This book was a reread for me. I read it the first time several years ago, back around the time I first discovered booktube and started getting really into reading, and everyone was talking about this series. So I read it, and read the whole series, and I loved it. I both own and have read almost every book Marie Lu has ever written. She is one of my favorite authors. So yeah, I would totally recommend this book, and this series, if you haven’t read it yet.

This book is set in a dystopian world where the United States has split into two countries, the Republic and the Colonies, after some sort of civil war. Specifically, it takes place in Los Angeles, which is in the Republic, and we follow two characters, June and Day. June, a prodigy, comes from the Republic’s elite circles, where she is being trained to go into the military. Day comes from a poor family in the slums of Los Angeles, and he is the Republic’s most wanted criminal. After June’s brother is killed and Day is blamed, June sets out to track him down. (I really like the last sentence of the book’s description on Goodreads, so I’m going to include it here.) “But in a shocking turn of events, the two uncover the truth of what has really brought them together, and the sinister lengths their country will go to keep its secrets.”

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Okay! So that’s all the books I read this month! I’ll be back tomorrow with my TBR for August, so I’ll see you then. Let me know down below what your favorite book you read this month was.

Thanks for reading, guys!

-Ariel