August 2019 Wrap Up | Failing NEWTs and increased “ARC”-load!

To summarize my August reading experience let’s just say that I did EVERYTHING, including writing reviews (Crazy! I know!), except reading books I carefully picked for my NEWTs TBR. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Was I expecting this to happen? 

Honestly, after such a great experience of the reading rush read-a-thon, I thought I’d be able to read tons of books in August – the ones on my TBR and the ones that didn’t make it to my NEWTs TBR. I’m slightly disappointed with myself, but I don’t think I could have forced myself to read more. 

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It’s time to see if I was able to achieve any of my August goals. Surprisingly, I only managed to complete 2/4:

X – PARTICIPATE IN THE NEWTS (NASTILY EXHAUSTING WIZARDING TEST) MAGICAL READATHON, HOSTED BY BOOKROAST.

Since I didn’t follow my original TBR and instead picked up random books that I was most excited to read, or ARCs that were due, I pretty much tried to assign the books to the prompts the best way possible. Here we go! 

O in Defense Against the Dark Arts

A: Book that’s black under the dust jacket 
E: Gilderoy’s memory charm – (grab a pen!) first book that you remembered just now from your TBR!
O: Cornish pixie! Swait it away with a book written by an English author or set in England

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I didn’t pass Defense Against the Dark Arts. «Date Night» could potentially count towards O, but to get Outstanding I needed to read A and E books as well, which I didn’t do.

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E in Charms

A: Read a book that you think has a gorgeous cover – Ten Thousand Doors of January
E: Read a comic/graphic novel/manga (or book under 150 pages) – Hostage

A in Herbology

A: Mandrake! Quick, put your headphones on! Listen to an audiobook (if not – green cover) – Siege and Storm

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E in Potions

A: Pollyjuice potion: read your friend’s favorite book! – Normal People
E: House ingredient: book with a cover in your Hogwarts house color – Ashlords

A in Transfiguration

A: Read a book with LQBTQA+ representation – The rest of us just live here

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X – CONTINUE READING ARCS DURING THE ARC AUGUST!

I did read some ARCs in August and I still ended up with more pending ARCs than I started… The highlight of the month was me getting the ARC of «Ashlords» by Scott Reintgen which I had to read IMMEDIATELY after getting it, even though the book will only be released in January 2020. I couldn’t wait… But now I will need to wait even longer for the second book. *SIGH*

Another exciting ARC that I received just a few days ago was «The Fountains of Silence» by Ruta Sepetys! I might have squealed in excitement when I saw the approval email from NetGalley.  This is definitely one of my most anticipated releases of this year and I can’t wait to read it asap!

✔ – JOIN THE NETGALLEY #REVIEWATHON

I mentioned in my August Goals post that my NetGalley ration was 84%, which is pretty good, but that I wanted to get some ARCs read and post the reviews, etc. etc. Well, I posted 5 reviews on NetGalley last month. Not too bad, but I definitely hoped for more.

✔ – CONTINUE 20 BOOKS OF SUMMER CHALLENGE!

This challenge finishes officially on the 3rd of September but I won’t have time to write a separate wrap up for it so I’m including it here instead. 

The goal of 20 Books of Summer was to read and review at least 20 books:

• From June till now I read a total of 25 books! YAY me for accomplishing at least one of the challenges! 
• I also managed to review 22 books this summer. Not all of the reviews made it to my blog, some are scheduled for later months and some will only remain on GoodReads (4 books were only reviewed on Goodreads).

I don’t want to say that this was an effortless challenge. Reading was an easy part as I naturally read more books than required without really pushing myself to read more. Writing reviews, however, was a tricky part. In June and July, I reviewed all the books that I read, and you probably know how difficult this can be, as not all books give ideas for discussion. So I tried to force myself to take notes /to procrastinate less when writing reviews and avoid the feeling of “meh, it was alright”.

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MONTHLY READING STATS

In August I read a total of 7 books, which is what I usually read per month anyway. Although, after my 11 books in July I was expecting to read more.

I also tried to track my reading, so every day that I read I’d input the number of pages in the excel document, just so I can see at the end of the month the days when I read the most, and maybe adjust from there. 

As you can see, most of my reading was done on the weekends (which is understandable) and in the first half of the month, slowly resulting in 0 pages per day. 

TOTAL PAGES: 2588

PAGES READ – AUGUST 2019

The 882 pages in one day resulted by me reading «Date Night» and «Hostage» in one day. Most of it due to «Hostage» being a 400 pages graphic novel!

I still read a decent amount of books, and I’m only 2 books short of my NEWTs goal. This means I won’t be an Auror this year… Oh, well. Better luck next time!

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I only participated in one of Top Ten Tuesday discussions this month. They take a lot of time to prepare, and not all themes are for me. This month particularly was heavy with character themes, and since I don’t really get attached to characters (or even remember their names) I skipped most of TTT posts. But I’m planning to return to it in September! 

What happened to all of you in August? Did you participate in any read-a-thons or other challenges? Were you able to read tons of books or some very good ones? 

Let Me Know In The Comments Below!

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