June was a rough month. I managed to get food poisoning that had me vomiting and nauseous for days. Then we had severe weather roll through town and knock out the electricity and internet for days, which was not pleasant with temps approaching 100F. I don’t know how people survived before air conditioning because I just couldn’t do it. The only bright side was my Kindle being fully charged before the outage. So, I could read at night without straining my eyes. Well. Enough of my complaining. Let’s get to the books!

Books I’ve Read

I managed to read quite a bit this month and even finished all 10 books on my initial TBR. Some were good. Some were great. Some were quite a disappointment. Without further ado, here are the books I read from my TBR (rating links to my review when available):

• We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian (4.75⭐)
• To Shape a Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose (4⭐)
• Her Majesty’s Royal Coven by Juno Dawson (3⭐)
• Only This Beautiful Moment by Abdi Nazemian (5⭐)
• Three Meant To Be by MN Bennet (4.25⭐)
• Different for Boys by Patrick Ness (5⭐)
• Perilous Times by Thomas D. Lee (4.25⭐)
• The Honeys by Ryan La Sala (3⭐)
• Darkhearts by James L. Sutter (3.25⭐)
• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (5⭐)

I read some other books, as well. It was a good mix of new releases and backlist books I’ve been wanting to get to. I finally finished my buddy read of ACOTAR with Celeste. Now I just need to decide if I’m going to jump into Throne of Glass or Crescent City next. Thoughts? Here’s a list of everything else I read (the ratings link to my review, if available):

• Threads That Bind by Kika Hatzopoulou (3.5⭐)
• A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas (3⭐)
• The Alchemy of Moonlight by David Ferraro (3.5⭐)
• Elf Defence by Lisa Henry & Sarah Honey (5⭐)
• The Last Magician by Lisa Maxwell (4⭐)
• The Henchmen of Zenda by KJ Charles (4⭐)
• Spellbound by Allie Therin (4⭐)
• The Will of the Many by James Islington (5⭐)

Progress On My 2023 Reading Goals

Goodreads Challenge

I’ve set my annual reading goal at 100 books for the year. I read 18 books in June. This brings me to 126 books for the year so far! I met my goal for the year back in May and am aiming to just read as much as I can now. 🙂

NetGalley Progress

I want to end the year with at least 150 reviews completed for NetGalley and a feedback ratio of at least 81%. In June, I completed 5 reviews for NetGalley, which brings my total up to 128 reviews. My ratio decreased a bit to 85%, though, because I got quite a few exciting approvals in June as well.

Make Some Progress On My Backlog

This year I’ve set the goal of having at least 25% of my reading be from my owned TBR purchased prior to 2023. This could include books on my physical or digital shelves, excluding ARCs. In June, I read 4 books from my shelves, which was only 22%. This left books from my shelves holding steady at 21% of my total reads for the year. This month was an improvement over last month, but I still need to do better…

Re-Read More Books

Last year, I didn’t get to re-read much of anything. This year I’d really like to return to some of my favorites. So, I’ve set the goal of re-reading at least six books. Unfortunately, I didn’t make any progress on this goal in June, which means I’m still at zero for the year. I do plan to start my first re-read of the year in the next few days, though. So, hopefully I’ll break this trend in July.

Participate in Challenges

I’ve got a few different challenges going this year. Here’s a quick update on each one of them!

POPSUGAR Challenge

I’ve completed 34 out of the 40 main prompts and finished 50% of the bonus prompts, as well. This means I completed two prompts this month. So, I’m still slowly chugging along with this one.

12 Months, 12 Books, 12 Friends Challenge

The Year-Long Scavenger Hunt

This scavenger hunt is being hosted by Jordyn @ Birdie’s Book Nook. So far, I’ve found all the prompts at least once! I’ve also found 29 of the 31 prompts a second time. I still need to find some books with pirates and/or a Hugo winner. Here’s where each of the prompts stands so far:

Magical Readathon: Adventure in Aeldia

This month my character, Padwin, chose to visit the locked library (book you already own). I read Her Majesty’s Royal Coven to complete my choice. Here’s a look at my journey so far, with each successful step highlighted in green:

Finish Five Series

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

• A Chorus of Dragons by Jenn Lyons
• Timekeeper by Tara Sim
• The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang
• A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
• The Magicians by Lev Grossman

I finished A Court of Silver Flames, which means I’m now up to date on ACOTAR. I’ve only got two series left to go to meet my goal, which is a great place to be at the midpoint of the year.

Final Thoughts

I did manage to do a few blog posts along with my reviews this month. You can find those in my blog archives if you are interested in checking them out.

Overall, this has been another good month of reading. My average rating was 4.08. My favorite was Only This Beautiful Moment, but there were so many this month that I enjoyed. What was your favorite book from June? Let me know down in the comments!

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 is having a great July!