It has been a while since I’ve done a monthly wrap-up. Two months to be exact. I’m not sure why but I just couldn’t be bothered to do one last month. I just wasn’t feeling it even though June was a pretty great month. I’ve been in a bit of a funk, and some new meds made July a rough one. I’m finally feeling a bit better, though. So, I thought I’d wrap up my reading from the last couple of months and check in on how I’m doing with my goals.

Books I’ve Read

In both June and July, I decided to do a bit of mood reading, which is something I haven’t done in quite a while. June was dominated by ARCs and library books, for the most part. I started some new series. I enjoyed some of them quite a lot, like The Ruin of Kings and In the Shadow of Lightning, and others not so much. I finished a couple duologies/series, which had me feeling accomplished, and cried my eyes out at another Silvera book. All in all, it was a great month of reading, and I once again ended up reading only stories featuring LGBT characters during Pride month, which honestly isn’t that different from every other month because most of what I read involves queer characters in some way.

July was a really great month, as well. I read so many books that I’ve been highly anticipating. I didn’t love them all, but there’s nothing I can say I absolutely hated. The Blood Traitor and Shadow of the Sith were probably the most disappointing, but I had super high, and probably unfair, expectations of them. I also found several new favorites in July, including Daughter of Redwinter, The Book Eaters, and Babel. I’ve never had one favorite book that stands out above all the others, but I do now. Babel was an absolute masterpiece, and I know I’m going to struggle to do it justice with my review. I also finally read Boyfriend Material in preparation for the sequel, which released today, and I absolutely loved it.

Progress On My 2022 Reading Goals

Goodreads Challenge

I’ve surpassed my goal of 100 books for the year! I read 14 books in June and 14 books in July, which brings my total so far for the year up to 105! I don’t plan to set a new goal. Instead, I’m just going to keep reading as much as possible to see how high I can get the number before the end of the year.

NetGalley Progress

I wanted to end the year with at least 50 reviews completed for NetGalley and a feedback ratio of at least 80%. I met my goal of 50 total NetGalley reviews back in April. So, that one is done! In June, I completed another 5 reviews for NetGalley, and I completed 5 reviews in July. My ratio inched up to 73% despite getting approved for some new books too. I think it is possible to reach my goal of 80%. I just need to stay focused and keep my finger off the request button…

Read More Nonfiction

I read one nonfiction book in June, Bi. So, my total of nonfiction books now stands at three so far for this year, which surpasses my goal of two for the year. Yay!

Read More Comics

I’ve set the goal of reading all the comics I buy during the week I buy them. So…this still hasn’t been happening. However, I’m slowly making progress on my backlog. I don’t think I’ll make much progress in August because of my participation in two readathons, but I’m hoping to get somewhat caught up once things slow down a bit in the fall.

#BeatTheBacklog

I’m trying to focus on having a majority of the books I read this year be books I bought, borrowed, or received prior to January 1, 2022. In June, only 14% of the books I read were bought, borrowed, or received prior to 2022. In July, it was only 7%… So, I’ve definitely been failing at this the last couple months.

Finish Some Series

I plan to finish or catch up on the following 5 series by the end of this year:

·  The Broken Earth by N.K. Jemisin

·  Arthurian Saga by Mary Stewart

·  The Extraordinaries by TJ Klune

·  Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling

·  A shit ton of different Shadowhunters books by Cassandra Clare

I finished The Extraordinaries trilogy in June. Now I really need to get to work on some Clare books. I have so many of them left.

Final Thoughts

I’ve decided not to include a list of blog posts or book reviews this time because of the two month time span covered in this wrap-up. Those lists would be a bit unwieldy since I post something most days. If you want to read my reviews or blog posts, they are all available in the archives, which are conveniently sorted by month.

Overall, this has been a great couple months of reading. I’ve enjoyed mood reading, and I think I’ll probably go back to it after finishing up this month’s readathons. I’ve done really well on some of my goals while floundering on a couple others. There is still some time left in the year to turn it around, though. So, I’m going to do my best to try.

Thank you to everyone who has visited the blog and engaged with comments and/or likes! I appreciate all of you and always enjoy reading your input in the comments. I hope everyone has a great August!