I’m honestly not quite sure where this month went. Looking back on it, there doesn’t seem to be any events that stand out as super significant. It has just all been a bit of a blur. I guess that is a good thing considering how awful June turned out to be. I’ll take the improvement of things returning to humdrum normal. lol. It wasn’t a ‘meh’ month when it came to reading, though. I finished tons of great books! Read on to find out more about them and how I’m progressing on my yearly goals.

Books I’ve Read

I finished 9 of the 10 books on my TBR. I enjoyed all of them, some more than others. I didn’t manage to get to The Magicians because I decided to read The Memory of Souls by Jenn Lyons in its place. It was a pretty great month, and I’m just satisfied that I managed to read all of my July ARCs before the month ended. Without further ado, here are the books I read from my TBR (rating links to my review when available):

• Blade of Dream by Daniel Abraham (4.5⭐)
• The Jasad Heir by Sara Hashem (4.5⭐)
• Academy Arcanist by Shami Stovall (4⭐)
• Magic’s Pawn by Mercedes Lackey (3.75⭐)
• A Rulebook for Restless Rogues by Jess Everlee (4⭐)
• Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (4.5⭐)
• Among Thieves by M. J. Kuhn (3⭐)
• Thick as Thieves by M. J. Kuhn (4⭐)
• Jack’s Ever After by Owen Lach (4⭐)

I read so many other books, as well. Most of these came from the library and are newer releases I’ve had holds on. They always somehow manage to all arrive at the same time. Here’s a list of everything else I read that wasn’t on my TBR (the ratings link to my review, if available):

• A Power Unbound by Freya Marske (5⭐)
• The Shadow Cabinet by Juno Dawson (4⭐)
• On or Off Vol. 4 by A1 (5⭐)
• The Memory of Souls by Jenn Lyons (5⭐)
• The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson (3.75⭐)
• Starcrossed by Allie Therin (5⭐)
• Jade Shards by Fonda Lee (5⭐)
• Immortal Longings by Chloe Gong (3.25⭐)
• Band Sinister by KJ Charles (5⭐)
• Dark Water Daughter by H. M. Long (3.75⭐)
• The City of Dusk by Tara Sim (Re-read – 4⭐)

Progress On My 2023 Reading Goals

Goodreads Challenge

I’ve set my annual reading goal at 100 books for the year. I read 20 books in July. This brings me to 146 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 July, I completed 5 reviews for NetGalley, which brings my total up to 133 reviews. My ratio increased a bit to 86%! So, I’m well on my way to meeting my goal as long as I don’t go on a requesting spree. 🙂

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 July, I read 3 books from my shelves, which was only 15%. This brought books from my shelves down to 20.5% of my total reads for the year. This went in the wrong direction this month. Maybe I should have set my goal at 20%. 25% seems like it might be a bit too much of stretch, but we’ll see if I can pull it out before the end of the year.

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. I finally made progress on this goal in July. I re-read one book, The City of Dusk, which means I’m finally at one re-read for the year. I’m hoping to re-read at least one book per month for the rest of the year, which will get me to my goal.

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 35 out of the 40 main prompts and finished 50% of the bonus prompts, as well. This means I completed one prompt 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 30 of the 31 prompts a second time. I really need to find some more books with pirates, time travel, and a Hugo winning author. Here’s where each of the prompts stands so far:

Magical Readathon: Adventure in Aeldia

This month my character, Padwin, brewed a potion of sleepless night (read when it’s dark). I read The City of Dusk to complete my choice. This was a tough one with the sun setting so late because it is the middle of summer. It did indeed lead to several sleepless nights. lol. 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 The Memory of Souls by Jenn Lyons, which puts me one book closer to the end of A Chorus of Dragons.

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 4.26. My favorite was A Power Unbound, but there were so many this month that I enjoyed. What was your favorite book from July? 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 has a great August!