And just like that, bye July! As I sat at work last week I realized this year is already more than half way over. I am just astounded at that. What the heck!! At this point I’ve read 39 books out of my 2022 goal of 52. So I’m definitely at a good point right now. To be honest I’m a couple of books behind in writing reviews. I’m not sure I ever will for these because 1) I already have a backlog of written reviews to post, 2) they aren’t ARCs, and 3) will I remember enough detail to write a review when I find the time? A good problem to have, I suppose. Anyway, let’s see what happened on the ol’ book blog in July.
Book Reviews
I posted five book reviews in July. From earliest to latest, here are my recent book reviews.
- The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood
- A River Enchanted by Rebecca Ross
- Jane Against the World by Karen Blumenthal
- Dark Earth by Rebecca Stott
- The Book of Gothel by Mary McMyne
Book Memes and Other Posts
Holy moly I posted a lot of stuff (for my norm) in addition to the above book reviews. These are the various memes, tags, discussion posts, and blogger boosts I wrote about this month.
- Monthly Book Blog Wrap-Up: June 2022
- Mid-Year Freak Out Tag
- Book Blogger Hop: July 1-7: What is your favorite movie adapted from a book?
- First Lines Fridays: July 8, 2022
- New Blog Theme
- WWW Wednesday: July 13, 2022
- First Lines Fridays: July 15, 2022
- Book Blogger Hop: July 15-21: Do you listen to audiobooks?
- First Lines Fridays: July 22, 2022
- 2022 Support Book Bloggers Challenge: July Check-in: Books I’ve read because of other bloggers
- Book Blogger Hop: July 22-28: Is there a hard-to-find first-edition that you would love to own?
Blog Statistics
For some strange reason I had over 500 views on July 16 and I haven’t figured out why. There’s no one post that seemed to have an unusual amount of traffic; rather, it seems like someone just viewed a lot of different pages. I’m inclined to think it was a bot because the average time spent on various pages was 4 seconds.
Anyway, during July I gained seven followers for a total of 91 at the time of writing this. A heartfelt thank you for following my blog! I now need 9 more followers to help me reach my goal of 100 by the end of the year.
For my last wrap-up I used total page views from the WordPress statistics page to list my top five most viewed posts. I think I’m going to switch to Google Analytics from here on out, though. I usually use total page views, but those are skewed for July because a bot had fun combing through my posts on July 16. (A lot of the posts with high total page views had very short average view times associated with them.) So this month I’ll use unique page views. Next month hopefully I can go back to total page views. But the question is: Why do I do this? Because I think it helps put expectations into perspective for other micro-bloggers like me are out there.
- New Blog Theme: 34 views
- ARC Review: Dark Earth by Rebecca Stott: 29 views
- ARC Review: The Book of Gothel by Mary McMyne: 28 views
- Book Review: The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood: 22 views
- Book Review: A River Enchanted by Rebecca Ross: 22 views
#BeatTheBacklog
Lisa at Owl Be Sat Reading started the hashtag #BeatTheBacklog to rally those who want to make a dent in their TBR list. In July I finished five books, one of which I had added to my TBR prior to 2022. That book is A RIVER ENCHANTED by Rebecca Ross. I’m not making a huge dent in my pre-2022 backlog, it seems, but oh well.
Other Bookish Updates
NetGalley
I’ve also been making slow and steady progress on my NetGalley backlog. Even though I requested and was approved for a few more ARCs this past month, I kept my feedback ratio above 70%. At this point my focus is ARCs that haven’t yet hit shelves. Then I’ll back track again and read the ARCs I have that were published earlier this year. Most of them are nonfiction, and I kind of regret requesting them because I basically only want to read fantasy now; but so it is.
Readathons
I also signed up for the August Trope-ical readathon. It starts tomorrow on August 1. This time I’m not quite sure if any of my ARCs will fulfill the Common Challenges, so I’ll just fill it out as I progress through the month. I also requested to join Jordyn’s OLD KINGDOM read-a-long, which starts in September. If you’re like me and haven’t read SABRIEL yet, this is a good way to get your butt in action.
Miscellaneous Book Fun
This past week it was announced that Sarah J. Maas’s THRONE OF GLASS series will be rebooted with new covers. Last summer I spent a lot of time tracking down the A COURT OF THORNS AND ROSES series with the original book covers. And let me tell you, it’s not super easy to find them for a relatively affordable price. (I hit refresh on eBay a lot.) My point is that if the love for TOG is as strong as that for ACOTAR, then the value for the original book covers will increase. So I hopped on it and found a hardcover box set on eBay before prices went up. I still haven’t read the series yet even though I’ve been dying to. So this was a nice treat to myself. I’m very pleased the books are in Like New condition.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading my rambling. What were you up to in July? Feel free to comment with your July wrap-up posts!
I do the same thing with my ARCs when I fall behind, I just accept that I’m late on a few and jump ahead to be “on time” with the ones that haven’t come out, then back up to get the stragglers. It stops the ARC queue from feeling like a runaway train you don’t have control over.
I think it’s a good strategy and agree it helps stop the ARC queue from feeling too out of control. At this point I’ve gotten my backlog down to 4 books that have since been published. Whew.
Hey Celeste,
oh, I do need to get on with my NetGalley backlog as well. Maybe I use tonight’s shift to make progress of at least of one of the ARCs. 🙈
Not sure, how I missed your review of The Book of Gothel, because the book recently caught my eye and could catch a spot on my Want-to-Read-List. I definetely have to check out your review, once I am done here. 😊
I am glad, that you could get the Throne of Glass – Box with the old original covers. I gotta be honest, at first I wasn’t really comfortable with the new covers. But for some reason, I start to like them. Who knows, maybe I get crazy I buy the whole series with the new covers as well. 😁
But I also have the box set of the original covers, probably the same one you could just haul. 😄
Knowing the story, because I read the German version of the series already, the new covers do show glimpses of the story. And taking a closer look at them, they are somewhat beautiful.
But anyway, let me know if you’d like to dig in to the books together. I still haven’t read the series in English. We could have a buddy read of some sort.
Cheerio
RoXXie
Good luck with your NG ARC progress tonight! 😉 I am also SO glad I found the Throne of Glass original covers box set for a fair price. I have no idea when I’ll actually start the series, but I’ll keep your offer for a buddy read in mind! Perhaps once I get around to reading the series I’ll appreciate the new covers more. But right now I think they’re a bit impersonal…but again, I know nothing about the plot haha.
Oh, I can totally understand when you feel the new covers are impersonal. That actually was my first thought as well.
But after I let a day pass and I checked them again, I could see more in them. Even though I do appreciate the original ones a lot more.
Just let me know when you plan on reading the books. I am not in a hurry, I have a lot on my TBR anyway. 😁
I am in a similar boat with my HUGE review backlog. At this point, I am just prioritizing ARCs and am leaving it at that. Jealous of your Netgalley shelf not having any past due — I swear it is a slippery slope once you miss one and I still haven’t recovered lmao.
Smart to pick up a hardcover set just in case, haha. It was more than likely a wise investment!
Oh, I definitely have some past due! Four, to be exact! Two are nonfiction, two are fantasy, so I take back what I said in my post about most of them being nonfiction. I don’t feel too badly about being late with the nonfiction, but I do feel a bit bad about the fantasy ones, especially since one of them I really wanted to read (and still do!). It’s definitely a slippery slope (as you know!) and I’ve been making up for it this entire year. I am SO looking forward to being 100% back on track with no overdue reviews on NG.
The Throne of Glass series was my first taste of Maas and I remember really enjoying them, although its been so long since I last read them I don’t even know what I’d think about them now (planning to re-read). I did see the new covers though and OMG they’re absolutely stunning and make me think that it’s a good idea I waited to get the books I really like these ones! I also can’t believe we’re now just halfway through 2022… What is even this thing we call time?! 😂 I hope you continue to have an amazing month in August and happy reading!
I’m glad you like the new covers. I’m beginning to realize I might be in the minority here? I think the new covers are ok, but maybe I’m just not drawn to them because I haven’t read the books, so the designs don’t mean much to me. Because of that, they come off as a bit impersonal to me. Oh well! Maybe I’ll feel differently once I get around to reading them.
And yes, what the heck is time?! I feel like this year has gone by so quickly…maybe because I’ve been deep into the book world more than I was last year haha. You enjoy your August reads as well. 🙂