Posted in Chatty

July 2022 Wrap Up: a month of parties!

Posted on by Jennifer

~reading

How many books that I planned did I read?

Of the 9-ish I had planned I finished 4, DNFd 1, and was in progress with 1. In total though, I ended up reading 13 and DNFing 2.

The Plan:

I planned nine, which was kind of ambitious, but I figured I could at least start them. In particular, The Mists of Avalon was a lengthy one that I knew for sure would be carried over (again).

The Result:

I read a lot of books I didn’t plan to read this month, clearly. And I never actually published a TBR post. So I guess I’m back to my old habits! 😁 A lot of these were planned based on my 20 (well, 15) books of summer sign up! book list that I’m trying to finish up. Now that I’m in the last month (halfway through the last month!!) the pressure is on! But I have most of them wrapped at this point. 🙂

The best surprises of the month were A Quest of Heroes by Morgan Rice and Love, Comment, Subscribe by Cathy Yardey.

Morgan Rice’s book was delightfully classic fantasy, with knights and princesses and chosen ones and noble deeds. I frickin’ loved it. There was something so comfortable about it embracing some of the classic tropes of good versus evil and humble, chosen peasants that made it super easy to sink into and love. The voice all through is wonderfully accessible and I just loved hearing about every character. There was never a point where I was bored or wanted to skip a part. Plus, highest praise of all, I immediately started (and finished) the second book (also great).

Yardey’s book was a surprise because I figured it would be an okay kind of book that was maybe kind of stupid but I wouldn’t mind because it was a fluff read. That was pretty incorrect. The amount of soul-searching the characters do was not what I expected, and so much of their conflicts are genuine issues with no easy solves. The YouTuber aspect of it was also unexpectedly engaging! I do have several people I follow on YouTube (but.. I guess to be honest, it’s mostly summed up by just saying I enjoy Gavin Free content, which feels a little weird) so the idea of what might go into their efforts was interesting to see. I also just loved the actual things they filmed in the book, and could imagine them vividly. I tend to like social-media based books, but this one felt unique in it’s approach. Most are thrillers.

The disappointments: The Spanish Love Deception (Elena Armas) and If You Ask Me (Libby Hubscher).

The Spanish Love Deception is one I didn’t enjoy from very early on. I don’t know why I kept reading it. Misguided hope, I guess, that maybe finally a Goodreads winner wouldn’t let me down. Yet… here we are. To sum it up, I disliked both characters and the sex was creepy and weird. “Let me feel you milk me” is not a believable or appealing thing to me. 🤢

If You Ask Me is a little more on the line, because for the most part I enjoyed it! I had fun reading it, laughed a lot, and it actually tackled some issues besides romantic relationship stuff. The issue is the way the romance focus started was with the dude just showing up to her house uninvited after being there for a service the night before. He just goes to her address, which he got through work as a public figure. I was WILDLY uncomfortable with that and it tainted everything else. It was a little too much leeway given to the situation, where if the woman hadn’t been interested or he was unattractive, etc, they’d be calling the police and not flirting over pastries.

Review published

~stats

  • My reading was 7% nonfiction this month.
  • My top genres were Young Adult (8 books), Romance, and Contemporary (both 7 books)
  • I mostly read books that were emotional, lighthearted, or hopeful.
  • My average rating was 3.04
  • I traveled to England, South Korea, and Spain, and in the United States I went to Texas, Virginia, California, and New York.

~life

This was a very social month with an event every weekend. What a change! It was nice to see folks and go to some new places. After a friend’s 80s themed birthday party, we went to a club in our 80s attire and learned that my boyfriends rocker-hair-wig was believable enough to get a lot of high fives and admiration for his… bravery? Dedication to his own style? Lack of conformity? I’m not sure, but boy was it a challenge fending off all those drunk happy people. 😂

I also went exploring on a rocky cliff beach with my boyfriend, and a few minutes after we found a cool place with only a few other people around to settle down and hang out, he came over to me and said we had to leave because, uh, that guy is naked and this is apparently a nudist beach and also that other guy is now getting naked too so we should probably go. WELLLL THEN! It certainly wasn’t signed anywhere so I’m curious if it’s like a locally known thing, or if it’s just that it’s secluded so people just go for it. Either way, we decided to try elsewhere. 😅

~blog

In reading some posts in the past few months about blogger stats and people tending to inflate what they thought was normal or average or a “successful” number I’m going to do something a little uncomfortable for me this month and post the WordPress-tracked stats for my blog to try and help with visibility for people. That said, July was VERY much an outlier. I have no idea why but my view stats went crazy high.

  • Views: 4339 (HIGHEST EVER BY ABOUT A THOUSAND. No idea what happened this month. You tell me??)
  • Likes: 257 (about the same as usual)
  • Comments: 128 (a lot but not out of the general range)
  • Followers: 362 total @ end of month, 10 new followers in July

Here are some of my favorite posts I worked on this month, in case you missed them!

And here are some of my favorite posts by other bloggers!

Author:

Reader, traveler, photographer, and always looking to learn!

8 thoughts on “July 2022 Wrap Up: a month of parties!”

  1. Thanks for the link! I’m glad you enjoyed that review. 🙂

    That sex scene you mentioned in The Spanish Love Deception sounds absolutely icky. That line is so not a turn on.

    But I do love a good classic fantasy adventure story! I’m glad you found one to enjoy last month.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Yes! Morgan Rice was a lovely surprise, and I feel like a fool for having THREE of the books in the series for so long and never having read them before. I need to trust the purchase decisions of my past self! haha 🙂

      Also I’m good to start The Ghost Bride when you are if you’re still interested in a buddy read? Let me know, not sure the best way to contact you besides comments 🙂 My storygraph page is linked on here!

      Like

      Reply

  2. Great wrap up, Jennifer! Sounds like you had a pretty interesting month both in terms of the social life and reading! I’m glad that you enjoyed Yardley’s book—it’s high on my TBR and I do hope to read it at some point this year (keeping it vague cos mood reading is hard lol)! The more I hear about The Spanish Love Deception the more I’m unsure whether I want to read it. I mean, most of what I see is like *super hype* posts about it but, ngl, that also makes me warier of it… 😅 Also, thanks for sharing my post 💜 I hope you’re having an amazing August so far!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I’m the same with hyped books haha. This one I read specifically for a challenge about a hyped book, but it didn’t go as well as when I read The Love Hypothesis for the same challenge which I liked a lot more than I expected. Take care!! ❤

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      Reply
  4. Pingback: September 2022 Wrap Up: fun and books and August too! – My Book Joy

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