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June Wrap-up and July TBR


Photo by mentatdgt from Pexels

Hello travelers,

    Welcome back to another wrap-up and TBR. I know this isn't everyone's favorite kind of post (and I'm honestly not a huge fan of it either but it's holding me accountable, so I'll do it for this year and maybe switch things up next year).

June wasn't that great a month for me in terms of reading. I hit a reading slump hard and struggled to get out of it. I think this is also because of everything that's been happening in the world and I just became exhausted. Despite all that, I did manage to read five books in June. These included:
  • Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury for my Decades Read challenge
    • Review: I enjoyed this. There were some very powerful quotes that rung a little too true but it's not my favorite work by him. Sometimes it felt like it lingered a little too long on an idea or bounced around a little too much. But i'd recommend it.
  • Little House in the Big woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder for Color My Shelves challenge
    • Review: I honestly don't remember reading this as a kid despite it being hugely popular with the home school community. Reading it now, I recognize a few of the passages but it's not this holy grail of kids literature that everyone seems to think it is. I also had some problems with some of the language and with some of the family dynamics, though i know the historical componant of those.
  • Rashomon by Ryunosuke Akutagawa for Color My Shelves challenge
    • I read some of these short stories in school. They are interesting looks into Japan's culture and history. i was especially surprised by the two Christian stories considering the bad history of Christianity in Japan. One of them was especially surprising. Highly recommend.
  • Seconds by Bryan Lee O'Malley for Color My Shelves challenge
    • This is a graphic novel from the creator of Scott Pilgrim. It follows a young chef who wants to own her own restaurant but does not think her life is going the way she wants it to. When a house spirit gives her a chance to change the past, she begins searching for perfection while avoiding the consequences of her actions until something else begins taking over and altering the world on its own. Very good graphic novel; i keep recommending this one to different people.
  • Neema: Victory Song from the Girls of Many Lands Series by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
    • This is a middle grade book that I wanted to read when i was little but never did. It follows Neema, a young girl in India during the Indian Independence Movement at the beginning of WWII. She wants to help the freedom fighters but isn't sure how. When her father goes to Calcutta to participate in a peaceful demonstration, he disappears and Neema decides to go search for him. I was a bit disappointed with this book because it starts a few story threads that don't lead anywhere and then Neema becomes more passive and observant and less involved that I wanted her to. I get the audience and the company that published this may have had something to do with that, but I was still disappointed. This is a good starting point for kids learning about the Independence Movement and Gandhi. 
For those of you participating in the Read through the Decades challenge, July is the 1960s. Your options include:
  • To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  • In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
  • One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  • Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
  • The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
  • Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
  • Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
  • I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
I plan on listening to I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and The Autobiography of Malcolm X. I might also try to read One Hundred Years of Solitude. All of this will depend on what is currently available at my library.

From my shelves, I'd like to read Blood of Elves by Andrzej Sapkpwski (the first book in the Witcher series), The X Files Origins: Agent of Chaos by Kami Garcia, and Dracula's Guest edited by Michael Sims (this is a collection of vampire short stories from various authors).

July is also CampNaNoWriMo. I'm participating with the goal of completing the second act of the story I started back in April. The Unfortunate Death of Dorian Greene is a New Adult vampire urban fantasy with four different POV characters that explores different aspects of immortality. It's been going well so far but I just realized I forgot to finish writing the outline before I got started on the project so that's brought me to a bit of a stop at the moment.

What are you reading this month? Are any of you participating in a month long challenge? If so, i'd love to hear from you in the comments.

Until next time, travelers.
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