Wrapping Up July 2018

Happy Wednesday, everyone! It’s the first day of August, and I need to wrap up what happened in July. This will likely be the only post this week, but I should be back to my normal twice-weekly schedule next week.

I normally share what I’m currently reading, but I’ve been more into reading fanfiction. I was reading The Cruel Prince, by Holly Black, but I’m suddenly out of the mood to listen to an audiobook diligently. I might have to blame it on this being the second Holly Black audiobook that I haven’t finished. Otherwise, I’m struggling to find something to read that will capture my interest.

Books I Read and Reviewed + Other Posts

My first review of the month was for Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi. I listened to it, and it was very interesting, which is why I gave it 4 stars out of 5. For my reading challenges, it easily fit for the Platypire Diversity Challenge, the YA Reading Challenge, and the Library Love Challenge.

Another book that fits all of those challenges was Gloria Chao’s American Panda. I gave this one 3.5 stars.

I participated in the Retellathon this month. It was a one-week readathon, centered on reading retellings. I opted for reading only one book, which only fit one challenge: the Unhappily Ever After Challenge. Stars, by Colleen Oakes, is supposed to be a darker retelling of Peter Pan, but I don’t believe it lived up to that promise. I rated the book 3 stars out of 5.

Most of my reading this month has been fanfiction. I still haven’t quite figured out how to summarize the fanfics I read in June, let alone what I’ve read in July. I may have to summarize what I read all summer. Though I read a lot of fanfics, one six-chapter fanfic stood out to me, resulting in a recommendation post about a Hogwarts House Exchange Program. (The link to the fanfic is in that post.) I also posted a new link-up to last the rest of the year for the Fanfiction Reading Challenge.

These are the other posts that I shared this month:

• I Want a Novella for Sausun, the Niqabi Ninja
• Books I’ve Recently DNF’d
• 5 Reasons I Like Audiobooks

Interesting Finds

Let’s start with one of the more controversial topics in the book community from this month. In case you missed it: an economics professor, named Panos Mourdoukoutas, wrote an op-ed for Forbes, claiming that Amazon should replace libraries. Obviously, this claim is outrageous and misinformed. Forbes took down the op-ed after the reaction, but some people have preserved it for future reading. (Thank you, Laura J. Roach, for helping me find a copy of the op-ed after it was deleted.) Two awesome posts that refute the arguments of the truly misinformed op-ed are from Krysta @ Pages Unbound and Justin @ The Brash Librarian.

Since I first heard about this library-centered issue on Twitter, I want to share a very helpful post about Twitter’s own TweetDeck, a tweet scheduling app. Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction guest-posted on Avalinah’s Books to teach everyone how to organize their tweets with TweetDeck. As someone who uses TweetDeck regularly, I learned a lot from her post.

To keep the ball rolling on book-blogger help, Laura @ Green Tea and Paperbacks offers steps for international book bloggers to get physical ARCs.

Vicky @ Vicky Who Reads shared “Things that Are Iffy to Me in the Book Community (From a Teen’s Perspective).” Two that I have thought a lot about and agree with her about are the age of the reader and their crushing on teen characters and buying books to support authors. I was surprised about the rest, but I agree that they are iffy.

Since I read The Hate U Give, I started looking for interviews with Angie Thomas and posts discussing the book. Reni Eddo-Lodge interviewed Angie Thomas for Our Shared Shelf, asking a lot of very interesting questions. A while ago, Our Shared Shelf sent a message to its Goodreads members, giving people a chance to submit questions to the author. That portion happens toward the end of the 50-minute video.

Irina @ I Drink and Watch Anime examined what makes a good review and what makes good writing in general. It’s more anime-focused, but I think it’s very relevant to writing book reviews. The post covers some of the usual suspects, like grammar, but it also gets into some of the nitty gritty of content and structure.

Ms. Victorious @ Victorious Pages went to a flash fiction workshop and shared what she learned along with some examples of her flash fiction. She also explains how some of them relate to writing novels.

>^..^<

That’s all for this week! I need to catch up on comments and find something besides fanfics to read. Thank you for reading, liking, commenting on and sharing my posts.

How was July for you? See you all with a new post on Monday!

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