August Wrap Up

 YAYYYY!!! It’s September 🙂 Summer is just about DONE and I cannot be happier! It has never been a secret that the summer is not something I am fond of but I am happy to say that this summer did not drive me crazy like it has in past years. A lot of that probably had to do with the fact that more or less the weather was farely tolerable. It still was quite hot at times but it was nothing compared to the normal unrelenting heat waves Toronto usually sees. Even despite that I am so excited for the Fall and crisp, cool weather. And boots and cider and leaves… ahhh all of it <3

August was a strange month for me! I went through some sort of slump(ish) thing where I didn’t have energy to post, comment, read blogs… nothing. Granted a lot of that probably came from it being the summer, because I normally am more lethargic(Yes… I do believe I am a vampire) with the longer daylight hours and sunlight. Strange, I know. I did get a fair amount read in August though, although not even close to the amount of ARCs I wanted. I got quite sick for several weeks in August as well but I’m on the mend (with this annoying lingering cough still, ARGH!) and I’ve been really getting into Yoga and loving it. See… I was all over the place in August!

Anyhow, onto the wrap up…

*Click for review

Two-Way Street by Lauren Barnholdt – 3/5 Stars
What Really Happened In Peru by Cassandra Clare & Sarah Rees Brennan – 3/5 Stars
Temptation by Karen Ann Hopkins – 4/5 Stars
Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare – 5/5 Stars
The Last Academy by Anne Applegate – 3/5 Stars
The Rules of Disappearing by Ashley Elston – 3/5 Stars
The Distance Between Us by Kasie West – 4/5 Stars
Truly, Madly, Deadly by Hannah Jayne – 3/5 Stars
Nomad by J.L. Bryan – 4/5 Stars
Keeping Her by Cora Carmack – 3/5 Stars
Fire with Fire by Jenny Han & Siobhan Vivian – 4/5 Stars

August was the month of meh. That is what I will officially call it going forward. SMOKES I read so many book that were just good, not outstanding. I did read 4 wonderful books (4 stars) and one OUTSTANDING (5 stars) book so I think the might have wowed me so much that the others were just “ok”. I also think I was really winding down on the contemporary because I don’t usually read so much and I really went nuts this summer!

Goodreads Challenge: I have currently read 98 out of my goal 115 books! It seems that I am 22 books ahead of my goal. This means I am that much closer to reading ALL THE BOOKS 😛

Debut Author’s Challenge: I completed my goal of 16 books 🙂 I still have a few that I hope to read before the end of 2013 but for now I’m going to take a step back and work on my TBR & Review piles. I will still keep updating this though because I’m interested to see how much I surpass this goal.

TBR Pile Challenge: Embarrassing. Again I did not read a single book for this challenge. Spare me! I will really have to focus on this one in September.

Summer of Stand Alones: The Summer of Stand Alones is officially over and I surpassed my goal and read 16 books, with my goal being 15. Yayyy 🙂 Check out my wrap up here.

ARC August: I wanted to read SO many books for ARC August, and I failed miserably. MISERABLY! I read 4. That’s it… argh, the frustrations.

I only took part in one tour in August which was for Temptation by Karen Ann Hopkins. I’m actually hosting the review for Belonging in September as well so stay tuned for that!

I unfortunately didn’t get a lot of reviews up for August but aside from the books I read and reviewed in August, I also posted my review for Losing Hope by Colleen Hoover and Sisters in Sanity by Gayle Forman.

Jamie from The Perpetual Page-Turner started Friday Fun and I participated in two of the posts, The A to Z Bookish Survey and Bookish Superlatives(EDIT: I had to put this post back into draft mode. It was causing an RSS Error and I’m trying to investigate why 🙁 ) They were a lot of fun to do, especially when I wasn’t feeling up to doing a review or discussion!

I took part in two Top Ten Tuesdays this month which were Top Ten Favorite Books Set in Boarding Schools & Top Ten Things That Make Your Life As A Book Blogger Easier.

I posted my first two guides for my Tips from an Organizer feature which were Organizing Feedly & Organizing Your Email. I’ve gotten a lot of great feedback and responses from it so far so thank you so much to everyone that has commented! I’m glad that people are enjoying it because I’m always really nervous with putting myself out there doing new things.

I also posted my very first discussion for my new discussion feature, Lose Time Chatting. I talked about The Library: When Good Books Go Back and realized I wasn’t alone wit my library obsession!!!

I signed up for Bout of Books and bombed it. I did not read a single freaking book because that was the week I was sick. Fail. I did participate in the Beat the Heat Readathon which went swimmingly though. I read 10 out of my 11 books for the month during that Readathon and I only intended to read 5! Good thing for that readathon or my month would have been a gigantic fail for reading!

I also am participating in The Bookish Games hosted by Asti at A Bookish Heart. I obviously can’t talk about what is going on but it’s a ton of fun, so if it’s something that interests you check out the day-to-day commenting!

And last but certainly least I went to FanExpo! I loved it last year but this year it was seriously the best thing I did all summer! I won’t rehash the event here but if you are interested check out my post (complete with pictures) where I go into detail about the day.

Once again my reader was overflowing with wonderful blog posts! Seriously, I couldn’t even keep up with my subscriptions in August, I’m still trying to get everything read! I love that 🙂

• Book Hype: Do You Cave? at A Glo-Worm Reads
• Don’t Rate Books You Haven’t Finished at Readers in Wonderland
• Blog Organization with Microsoft OneNote at A Bookish Heart (Seriously… I’m obsessed with this now!)
• Are List Style Reviews Easier? at On Starships & Dragonwings
• Own What You Read at Respiring Thoughts
• 5 Reasons Your Blog Makes Me Sad at Another Novel Read
• Killing Off Characters at A Glo-Worm Reads
• 10 Tips for Surviving a Book Buying Ban at Readers in Wonderland
• 10 Completely Legitimate Reasons to Break a Book Buying/Requesting Ban at Readers in Wonderland
• Why is THAT book 2.99? at On a Book Bender
• A great list of things you should know before you switch to WordPress at Caffeinated Book Reviewer
• Why Can’t We Play Nice at On the Wings of Books
• Leave Goodreads Alone at Oh! Chrys
• Author-Reviewer Relationships at Speculating on SpecFic
• But I Got To Have It at Queen Ella Bee Reads
• Awesome Things That Publishers Do at Christina Reads YA
• Sidebar Should Haves and Should Nots at Parajunkee
• Cover changes Mid Series at Book Nerd Reviews
• Blogging Tips & Tricks: Negative/DNF Reviews at Ink Scratchers

I still have a ton of posts from August that I haven’t gotten through so September is going to be chock full!!

How was everyone’s August? Link up your wrap up posts 🙂