I started off the month by finishing two books I had started in the latter half of August, then spent the rest of the month reading A Fort of Nine Towers by Qais Akbar Omar and Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang, neither of which I’ve finished yet, unfortunately. If I wasn’t in school, I would have definitely pulled a reading marathon these last few days of September! Alas, I’m sneaking in a few minutes of reading before class and a few minutes before bed. Loving both A Fort of Nine Towers and Beautiful Country, and hopefully I’ll have a lot to say about them next month!
August reads
School’s started and I’ve been doing lots of academic readings. Someone please give me a recommendation for books like Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino and Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener so that I have new references to make in class haha. As for pleasure reading, it’s been going slow and steady. I can’t tell you how badly I want to spend every weekend doing nothing but reading for fun. Still getting used to transitioning back to a “normal” pace of life… and having to commute!
July reads
Riding on June‘s momentum, July was another great month for reading. I’ve been frantically cramming in more reads before the school year starts again, as well as catching up on blog posts; with this one up, we’re all caught! Check out my 2021 mid-year reading check-in from this past month if you missed it. The doodles took me way too long but they were very satisfying to make hahh.
2021 mid-year reading check-in
So far this year I haven’t been able to focus on my favourite genre, literary fiction, which tends to be character-driven. Instead, I’ve been more captivated by plot-driven stories, and have even turned to a few graphic novels, middle grade books, and old favourites–as in rereads!–all of which are out of character for me. At first I felt a bit anxious that I was missing out on books that would have been new favourites had I not been in the “wrong” headspace, but I’m learning to embrace this change in my reading habits for however long it might last. Despite my worries, I found a new favourite after all, and it’s one of the best feelings in the world! The only problem now is that I need to figure out how to put these fictional characters behind me and move on with my life hmm…
June reads
Do you ever struggle on bookstagram with having a book you want to talk about but not having a picture to go with it, or having a picture of a beautiful cover but not feeling particularly excited to talk about the disappointing story it held, but you make a post anyway that’s mediocre in one way or the other because it’s the only content you have and you have to post consistently to appease the algorithm?
Well, eff the algorithm! I stopped posting on bookstagram regularly and the world kept on spinning (still promptly updating my Stories with most of my current reads though!). It feels great not stressing about it anymore. Plus, I had my best reading month of the year, though that may just be a coincidence and better attributed to the fact that I finally read The Poppy War trilogy.
May reads
Y’all, I’ve been reading the same three books for ages! Those would be The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, and Everybody by Olivia Laing. I feel bad that I have nothing new to report to people who ask. But I’ve added two more reads to the mix: Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart and The Poppy War by RF Kuang. Kinda wanna drop everything for The Poppy War then Shuggie Bain, but also wanna finish and be done with all those other books, which are interesting, but which I can’t seem to focus on :/ I’m tempted to put them on pause for now and pick them back up later when I’m in the mood, but I have a feeling that I might just never pick them back up… which… is not necessarily bad… but potentially sad to think about…