 Hello friends! Welcome back to my channel. Today it's time for a July wrap up. Are they shaved? Listen, yeah I didn't read a lot in July. I read seven books. I read seven books in July. But you know what? I'm not that upset about it because I went on holiday and then I had COVID. And so I just felt like it was a lot. July was a lot. And I'm happy with the reading that I did and actually I feel really excited to read more in August. I feel like it's actually been a good kind of break. Not really a break because I still read a fair amount. But like it's been a good kind of stop and pause and then I feel really excited about what I'm going to be reading in August. So it's fine. Hang on you're a bit high up. Should we lower you down a bit? You're looking a bit like not the right level. I was like, hi guys! As always let's get into the stats and then we'll talk about my disappointment, surprises and hits of the month. Love stats. Oh my god I love that. Yeah. Okay. I read a total of seven books in the month of July. I read a total number of pages of 2320 which is not the worst. That's kind of similar to some other months that I've read. So you'll see that in the stats. So average pages per day is 74 which is lower than I like. I like my average pages per day to be at least 100. I always say it doesn't mean I have to read 100 pages every day because I don't. I read none like maybe two days and then I read 300. Do you know what I mean? Yeah my reading is quite sporadic. I wouldn't say I'm like at the moment have a regular reading time. I just kind of read when I really want to and need to. I don't have a regular time. I mean my most regular time for reading is the evening. Like before bed that is my most regular time but I have been watching more shows with Tom lately so that might be why it's a bit lower. I had an average book length of 331 which is a lot longer than other months. Usually I think it sits around 250 because I'll read a few novellas. So 331 is a lot longer than it usually is. So that shows you although I didn't read many books they were on the longer side of books. I had an average rating of 3.8 which is fairly high but I feel like when it's a smaller sample size it does tend to be higher for me. And the books spend an average time on my TBR of 9 months which I feel like is a good figure. I had some books which I'd literally just acquired which is always good to kind of cycle through those books quickly. And then I had some books they'd been there like 18 months so it kind of averaged out. In terms of rating I had 2 5 stars, 1 4 star, 2 3.5 stars and 2 3 stars. I also had 1 DNF which is not included in the 7 books that I read. I read about 200 pages of it. We will speak about it later on actually but I haven't included it in into stats and I haven't included it as one of the books I read because I've read about 35% of it. So I actually read 2,520 pages this month. So a little bit higher than an average of 74 pages per day. In terms of genre I read 1 historical, 1 horror, 2 mystery, 1 nonfiction, 1 romance and 1 thriller. What was the romance I read? Oh yeah. Let's just forget about that shall we? Could you just cut that out? So a good mix of genres I always like to have like you know a little bit of every genre. That's kind of my taste in reading. In terms of the format of the books I had 1 audiobook, 2 mixed media books and 4 physical books. I usually have the biggest number mixed media books but I'm really trying to like not acquire more audiobooks than I need at the moment. So if I can just read a book physically I am tending to just read a book physically. I do love mixed media you know having the physical book and the audiobook together. But listen I'm trying to save money. I'm trying to be frugal bitches up in here. I'm not trying to buy many books will stop. I'm trying to be very very frugal. That is a problem because I'm not acquiring many 2022 releases so that is a problem. I forget that I should be getting and reviewing these books. I was just like I put them on my wish list when they come out and I'm like job done. I'll get them at some point. I'll buy that at some point. I'm like I put it on the radar that I need to buy it but yeah I'm not buying many books at the moment which is good for my wallet. But I do want to read more 2022 releases because I have not read a lot yet. In terms of audience I read five adult books and two YA books. So I feel like throughout the year we've seen definitely my reading skewing more towards adult. I still love YA but yeah I just feel like I'm vibing a lot more with adult books at the moment or definitely older YA. I haven't enjoyed the younger YA books I've been reading this month. They're probably a lot of my lower rated books. So in terms of how I acquired the books one was from Book of the Month. One was gifted to me. Two were physical books that I bought myself. One was on the audible and two were sent to me by the publisher. In terms of series stats all seven books I read this month were stand-alone. Which like I'm proud of myself for not starting any more series but I should have made progress in a series at least. I've been trying to do that every month. So yeah no progress in any series this month but at least I didn't start any. That's the real you know go me here because that is real self-control. I don't know how good I'm gonna be at this after this year because the kind of finishing series is my big goal this year. But I don't know if that's necessarily gonna continue. I tend to have one big reading goal every year in kind of what I want to focus on. Last year it was making sure I read more diversely. This year it was finishing series. So I don't know I might just like it might like snowball. It might be like you know when you're like when people go on a diet. They like eat really restrictively and then when the time ends they just eat everything. I might just start all the series. And then finally in terms of author status. One author was a debut. Two were authors I'd read from before and four were new to me. Okay well let's get into the disappointments, surprises and hits. So the first one is the book that I DNF'd. I can't find my physical copy of it. I don't know where it's gone. It's somewhere here. I might just like flung it out the window in anger. The book was Witches, Steaching Gold. So you'll know this if you watch my most recent video, which was reading the lowest rated books on my TBR. We'll speak about at least one more of the books later. This one, yeah I'm so sad. This was probably one of the biggest disappointments I've had in a long time. Where this was last year one of my most anticipated releases. I was like I tried so hard to get an arc. I didn't get one. I was so excited when it was Fairy Loot. Like I was I can't explain how excited I was for this. And it just really was not for me. So this is a Jamaican inspired fantasy following these two girls who are witches. I think, I don't really know. One of them's a princess and one's the rightful heir. And she spent her life in prison and is just broken out. My problem was because I didn't understand anything. I didn't understand who are the characters were. Like the slide characters. I didn't understand what was going on a lot of the time. There was so much world info that was just dumped on you. It was like a barrage of just constant rod info. And I need a bit of a break. Like I need a bit of a break. Like this was obviously such a complex and interesting world that the author had built up. And she was like excited to tell us everything. She was like this world building and this world building and this world building. And I was like I don't understand what is happening. So when I reach a point of 200 pages in the book and I don't understand what's happening. It's either start it again or DNF. So I just DNFed it. Which I am sad about. I've seen a lot of other people saying they DNFed it. So not only does it have a low rating. The people who DNF it tend to not rate it. And a lot of people have DNFed it as well. So I feel like it's not just a me problem. But you know, I do want to be careful about how we speak about books inspired by other cultures. Because I think historically there has been this problem of authors of colour getting criticised for writing cliché YA. Right. And I've always said that isn't a criticism of a book. Because those authors are finally getting to write that stuff. When historically that space has just been made, you know, taken over by white authors. Do you know what I mean? There's been no space for authors of colour to write those stories. And it's so important that they're written. And you know, I spoke about her in the video. Out of my five low-estrated books on my TBR, three were by black women. And I think that is a combination of ingrained racism essentially. And people saying oh I can't relate to this book. Oh it's cliché, you know, that kind of stuff. Unconscious bias. And also, you know, we have to recognise that authors of colour are much more likely to be victims of like targeted low ratings. People who haven't read the books rating the books low on purpose. So I think it's a combination of all of those things. And I think as readers we do have a responsibility to think about that when we're rating books. So I didn't like this, but I would still recommend it to people to give it a go. You know, it didn't work for me, but also some people have loved it and given it really high ratings. So yeah, I think it's a tricky one because you have to be aware of your ingrained biases. We all have ingrained biases. And there might be a part of me that just doesn't understand it because of my separation from the culture. I don't think that is the case. I think it is to do with the writing and the kind of overwhelmingness of the world building and difficulty like discerning all the different pieces of information that a lot of people have experienced. But that also is a possibility that I feel like we have to be conscious of. And then the other book that I would say was a bit of a disappointment for me was A Fatal Crossing by Tom Hindle. This has actually been made The Waterstones. There were a lot of them this month in the new paperback. I actually quite like the paperback. But anyway, this is a historical Metamistory set on a ship. I read it in the cruise vlog where I read books set on a cruise. Metamistory set on cruise on the cruise. I just didn't love this. No, that sounds bad, guys. And forgive me for saying it. But that's how I felt. I think it's a good debut. But I don't think it goes enough places, right? As a murder, this guy, this old guy was found dead. The murder they quickly find is a lot of people on the boat kind of with links to him and links to the art world that plays a big role in it. But the book just didn't have any reveals. It didn't have any twists and turns. And I feel like as a murder mystery, you need to have red herrings. You need to have piece of information that makes us second guess and think again. And I just didn't think that this had that. It was pretty linear. And I don't mind a linear story if you're giving us piece of information that makes us doubt this person and doubt this person. And I didn't really feel like that. I just felt like, okay, we're supposed to suspect them all and then we're going to get told at the end who it is. It wasn't great for me. But I would still read another book by this author because I think it is a solid debut murder mystery. But it was just a bit disappointing because I had such high hopes because it was a modern murder mystery and I always have high hopes for those. Okay, surprises. Just a mini surprise was The Woods Always Watching by Stephanie Perkins. This is like a YA slasher. We're following these two best friends who go on this hike together and things quickly turn wrong. So this was just a bit of surprise. I gave it 3.5 stars. So it wasn't like crazy, but this was in that low-rated video as well. And I enjoyed it. I would say I said in the video I had like a four-star level of enjoyment but it took me a week to read a two-in-a-page book. I didn't have a lot of motivation to pick it up. So that's why I dropped it down to a 3.5. But I had a lot of fun. I think it was fun slasher ridiculousness. If you're going to read this book, you need to go into it knowing it's crazy. Like, it is ridiculous. Like, it is... redone. Like, the ideas of reality and possibility and like actual any kind of sense go out the window. This is crazy. I really liked the relationships. I liked the twists and turns. So yeah, I think it was a fun read, but it is ridiculous. Like, it's not just a normal horror. It's a slasher. It's like, I think scream. It's just ridiculous. It's almost comical at some points. And it's quite gory as well. So be warned. I wouldn't recommend it to like younger YA. And then this could also be cast as a hit because it was one of my five stars for the month. But it really surprised me how much I loved it. And it was Big Little Lies by Leanne Moriarty. This was my book club pick for June. I always read them the month after at the start of the month. I loved this. I gave it five stars. I couldn't believe how much I loved it. Now, I did read this when I had COVID. So I wasn't up to doing much else other than read this. I'm sure you know the story. We kind of have these three friends in this kind of close-knit town in Australia who have kids at the school together. You know from the start that at the end of the story a murder is going to happen. So you're kind of leading up to that. I loved this. I loved the like Housewives drama of it all. I was obsessed with Housewives of Salt Lake Cities season two while I was reading this as well. The vibes together was just immaculate. I mean, hi, baby gorgeous. Hi, baby gorgeous. I loved the like claustrophobic school setting. I loved all the women and their relationships. I loved all the different storylines and difficult issues that this tackled. I loved there's like at the end of all the chapters there's like snippets of the police interviewing all the different parents on this school like individually. And it just like created this aura of gossip and everyone's speaking by each other's backs. I just thought it was so good. So well written. I loved the end morality style of writing. It reminded me of when I read Taylor Jenkins Reed's writing and I just really like her style of writing, you know? It reminded me of that. I got so attached to the characters. I just had the best time reading it. I really had a great time reading it. And I haven't had a five star since I read this and it's sort of the start of the month and I'm like it's time. It's time for the five stars. I just feel like I need some five star energy right about now. I did start watching the show. I only got like 20 minutes into the first episode and I wasn't vibing because the vibe that they made the show, I mean, I'm still excited to watch it, but the vibe they made the show was like serious. Like a bit like, ooh. You know, that vibe. Whereas I want Real Housewives to select city drama. That's what I want. That's the energy the book gave me. It was funny and the show wasn't funny. It was like gray and serious. And I'm like, what? Like why are you doing this to me? And then my other hit of the month, this is only a hit. I wouldn't say it's a surprise because I expected great things from this author was The Woman in Cabin 10 by Reeth Wears, my other five star of the month. This was also read on the cruise and I loved this. So this is set on a luxury cruise in the Norwegian Fjords. Lo, yeah. Lo, our main character. She just had her house robbed and she's like real, she's real like on the edge. She's like, oh my God, I'm like real anxious right now. But she still has this job to go on which is a luxury cruise in the Norwegian Fjords and she's supposed to like review it for the travel magazine she works for. And on the first night, she goes to the room next door to ask to borrow some mascara. She meets a girl there, goes on with the night, doesn't see the girl again. And then at night when she's lying in her bed, she hears a splash in the water as if her body has been thrown off and sees blood on the window next door. When they go in there, no trace of any of that. No trace of foul play. So she's like, am I going crazy? Did I really meet this girl? Like what is happening? I love the claustrophobic setting. There's literally only like 10 guests or something on the boat. So it's like a very close-knit group. Whereas a fatal crossing like this 2000 passage on there could be anyone. This, you know, it's like someone you've met on the ship. It's a very close-knit circle of characters. I loved the route this went down. I would say from like the two-third mark of the book it goes in a really interesting direction that I think it's hard to like maintain suspense, maintain excitement and it does it so well. I loved the ending. I almost cried at the ending. And Ruth Ware is just a favorite author. With this book, it's her third five star. She has really classified herself as one of my favorite authors. No, I don't think you understand. I'm obsessed. You know, it hasn't got the best ratings, but I really, really enjoyed it. It's just a classic fun thriller. You know, it's like a quick read, really tear through it. And I'm like, wow, I love this. I need to read more just like fun thrillers. So good. And Ruth Ware, I just feel like she's one of the major thriller authors that really knows how to write a female protagonist. We look at Riley Sager, right? I feel like Ruth Ware and Riley Sager, I just view in tandem. They're kind of the same level of popularity and like prestige, I feel like, in the thriller world. And Riley Sager could not write a woman character of his life. And yet we keep letting him try to do it. Why would you say something so controversial yet so brave? He really can't. He's like, they're all crazy. And yeah, like it's so annoying. Whereas Ruth Ware really knows how to write a complex female character, something that Riley Sager was criticised with for Survive the Night. Riley Sager's like, why am I involved in this? Why bring up my name? But something he was criticised with for Survive the Night and that I've heard criticism for his latest release, House Across the Lake, is a female protagonist having mental health issues. And that being like, you know, the reasoning for your audience is like, can we trust her? Can we really trust what she's saying or whatever? Whereas in this, Lo does have mental health issues. She does take, I think, anti-depressants or presents or anti-anxiety medication, something like that. But it never is cause for us to doubt her. We're like on her side the entire time we're there in her corner which I much prefer, you know. We're like angry at the other people who doubt her because of that. And we're like in her corner, like no! You know, it's very different in how the authors paint mental health issues. So I just love Ruth Ware. The It Girl comes out I think in a couple of days. So yeah, I really, really love this. Absolute hit for me. So there we have it. That was my July wrap up. Let me know how reading went for you in July. Again, I'm not upset with the books I read this month. We had a lot of extenuating circumstances and August, let me tell you, I've got like some pefty five star predictions lined up for August. So I'm very, very excited. It's like now that I filmed this, the reading can begin. I didn't read anything yesterday. August was first. So today's August 2nd. I feel like, okay, now it begins. But thank you guys so much for watching this video. If you watched to the end, comment the I emojis down below because the cover of big little eyes. I love their little eyes. They're like, who can we trust? So comment the like double I emojis down below if you've gone to the end. Thank you guys so much for watching. Let me know how your July reading went. I'll see you very soon in another video. Bye.