Monthly Wrap-Up: August 2017

Book Reviews

• Girl Code: Gaming, Going Viral, and Getting It Done by Andrea Gonzales & Sophie Houser: 4/5 Stars
• Paradise Lost by John Milton: 5/5 Stars
• Tokyo Ghoul, Vol. 1, by Sui Ishida: 5/5 Stars
• Radi Os by Ronald Johnson: 4/5 Stars
• Paradises Lost by Ursula K. Le Guin: 5/5 Stars

I stuck to a theme of Paradise Lost because I finished a course on Milton at the end of July. The three books associated with that class were required reading.

On the subject of book reviews, I posted a discussion about how you review bind-ups and omnibuses. This post counts as my eleventh post for the Discussion Challenge, which met my goal. I will keep posting as part of the challenge, but I highly doubt I can reach the next level of the challenge. I’ll be content with being a Creative Conversationalist.

Currently Reading

I’m still working on Nisemonogatari: Fake Tale: Part 01, by NisiOisin, for #TheReadingQuest. I should finish it tonight and move on to the next book: The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

Memes & Book Tags

• Six Degrees of Separation from Pride and Prejudice to Soul Music
• Book Traveling Thursdays: National Book Lover’s Day
• Book Traveling Thursdays: Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda

#TheReadingQuest

I’m disappointed in myself for not having completed even one book thus far. I have to finish five more over the next ten days to complete my quest.

I’m still a Level 1 Bard, but my XP is at 10 and my HP is at 35.

Reading Challenges

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 48/60

That’s some pretty major progress. Maybe I’ll reach my goal by the end of October or November!

Pages Read Challenge: 11,378/17,000

Back to the Classics Challenge: 4/6

Banned/Challenged Books Reading Challenge: 9/13

I’ve moved up to the Blow-Up Level. The books I read this month were the first two volumes of Tokyo Ghoul (the second review will post next month) and Beijing Doll by Chun Sue.

Graphic Novel Reading Challenge: 9/12

Tokyo Ghoul is helping me with this one.

Library Love Challenge: 17/24

I’ll list the books that apply to this challenge.

• Tokyo Ghoul, Vol. 1 by Sui Ishida
• Tokyo Ghoul, Vol. 2 by Sui Ishida
• Trans Voices: Becoming Who You Are by Declan Henry

Operation Deepen Faith

I haven’t made progress on this, but I will be making progress next month because I have to read passages of the Bible for class. Look out for an update on this one.

Picture Book Reading Challenge: 7/20

No progress this month.

Reading Challenge Addict: 2/11

I’m still at the Easy as Pie level, but I’m proud that I’m completing more challenges.

As a note, I’m counting #TheReadingQuest as a challenge, so if I complete my character’s path in time, I’m counting it as a point for this challenge.

Interesting Finds

Once upon a time, the Internet used to be a place where you could be anyone. No one had to know your name or anything identifying about you. I blame social media for losing anonymity on the Internet. Tiny Rubies shared their thoughts on anonymous blogging. Like the author of this post, I miss being anonymous on the Internet.

I have the fortune of living in the United States and having easy access to books that I would like to read, but this isn’t necessarily case for international book bloggers. Paloma Mu @ Sweet and Unholy provides a list of sources for cheap books for international bloggers.

Speaking of cheap and free books, so many book bloggers and BookTubers host giveaways in order to celebrate events on the blog or to give a reward for participating in a challenge. Did you know that there are some legal issues to consider when hosting a giveaway? Jennifer @ Busy Being Jennifer breaks down the rules of giveaways.

Lory @ The Emerald City Book Review asks, “Do you read in other languages?” The discussions in the comments are interesting. Personally, I am effectively monolingual, but I am at an intermediate level with German. I can read some German picture books, and I used to make an effort to try reading the German articles on Der Spiegel. I would like to get to a level in German and Japanese, the language I’m actively studying now, where I can read books.

The Paris Review posted an article that translated famous poems into emoji poems? I’m not that great at understanding everything conveyed with emojis, but I’m intrigued by the thought of emoji poems.

With writing comes the need for editing. Blake Atwood @ The Write Life shared how much you should expect to pay for editing.

I finished reading Girl Code by Andrea Gonzales and Sophie Houser at the start of the month. It reminded me about the lack of YA female protagonists in STEM. This YA book is nonfiction, but the last time I found and read a YA novel with a character who fit that description was last year (the book was The Thing about Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin). A few weeks ago, Shannon A. Thompson wrote about this topic, which started an interesting discussion about science in fantasy and character tropes.

Two quick finds about two books:

1. The Handmaid’s Tale: Anna Sheffer @ Electric Lit shows how the epilogue of the novel is narrated by a man. In other words, Offred’s story is still controlled by men.
2. Nisemonogatari: Fake Tale: I’m reading this light novel right now. I found this forum a couple weeks ago that examines the idea of real and fake. Spoiler alert for the content of the forum.

Final Thoughts

First: My advice for college was included in one of the college-geared posts by Briana and Krysta @ Page Unbound. Everyone in that post and the advice in the series should be considered if you are entering college next week or entered this month.

Second: I am going to move my progress update on challenges to Sundays because I haven’t been able to make Saturday deadlines of that.

Third: For one reason or another, my review of Killing Stalking‘s first season has been receiving a lot of views for the last couple of months. I’m glad that the review has been of interest to you, and I hope it was helpful.

Fourth: Is there anything that you would like me to talk about in a future post?

Finally: Thank you as always for reading, liking, and commenting on my posts and following this blog. Your support has been encouraging to keep me blogging.

Have a great weekend!