Hello!

July has been a much slower month – that whole ‘working on feeling more present thing’ is something I’m starting to get better at, but for some reason it also made me way more tired and I kept falling asleep in the middle of chapters (not a reflection of the books I was reading at all!).

This month was the one I decided to vaguely set myself a tbr – not so much as a number of books to get through but more a minimum reading counting for different platforms because is there any point in having a Kindle Unlimited account if I’m only going to read one book a month? (Probably not, so I need to make it worth it!). As I only decided this goal in the middle of the month, I was having a slower reading month and I got sucked in to the ‘Dark Gifts’ series by Vic James and couldn’t bring myself to read anything else, I didn’t meet all of my goals. But I’ve read one KU book and just finished an audiobook too so I think I’m on the path to achieving these goals in August!

So let’s start at the beginning:

Icons – Margaret Stohl ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I’m not sure when I picked up this book, it could have been anywhere from 5-10 years ago but honestly, I still really enjoyed it. I’m finding YA a little bit hit and miss as I get older (which I both like and hate) but I find fantasy/sci-fi is enjoyable to read at any age level. For a book that was technically about an alien invasion, I thought there was a really good balance of sci-fi elements without being inundated with aliens and super advanced tech and all that. If the world was going to be attacked by the Icons, I’m pretty sure humanity would react exactly as depicted in this book and I really enjoyed it.

The world building was very immersive, the character’s had fantastic depth and balanced realistic flaws with reluctant maturity well, and the formatting of government documents revealing information but not always in the way you’d think was a really interesting tool to inform the reader without info dumping (and also slightly misleading, which I thought was very clever).

When I’ve not seen anyone talking about a book online I’m always a little bit dubious because I feel like I’m going in blind, but sometimes that also really helps a story and it definitely did in this case.

The Butterfly Lion – Michael Morpurgo ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I’m really not sure how I managed to dodge reading this book when I was a child, but I really understand why it’s such a coveted classic. It was absolutely beautiful, both in the story itself and the illustrations throughout the book. It might sound silly, but it was a lovely length – the kind of book that makes a child feel like they’re reading a grown up book because it has over a hundred pages and more words than pictures, but also I enjoyed that it was short with big font because I could get it read quickly.

This was my book club pick for the month and I’m so glad that I had the opportunity to read this story, because I really hope to be able to share it with my own children one day.

Gilded Cage (Dark Gifts #1) – Vic James ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I’ve had a physical copy of book 2, Tarnished City, since 2020 and it’s only now that I realised book 1 is on Kindle Unlimited so I could actually make a start on the series without having to spend any money (other than my KU subscription, but we’re not talking about that). Another series I’d heard absolutely nothing about but this absolutely deserves more attention – a contemporary dystopian (described as Orwellian – it’s kind of modern day alternate universe esque and I think dystopian might be the best way to sum that up?) fantasy with complicated family dynamics, interesting parallels on race and elitism and some very sweet found family alongside some really clever, deception political discourse.

Apparently the only politics I find interesting is fictional fantasy politics!

The more I talk about and read this series I think I might need to bump it up to 5 stars because the world building is really intricately clever, the characters are smart and interesting (and only one of them is a bit annoying) and every time I think I know what’s going on or what’s going to happen, someone throws a curveball and everything changes. It’s a truly wonderful series.

Tarnished City (Dark Gifts #2) – Vic James ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I finally got to tick another paperback off my physical tbr! Leaping right in to the sequel was absolutely the best way to approach this series – the way everything was connected became further interlaced and when a new character would pop up, another scene with another character would show that they’re aligned with someone else and it all fit together with the satisfaction of the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle.

It was definitely a bit of middle book syndrome where there was lots of development and set up but the main players were in three different locations and barely interacted with each other, but so much was set up, the entire political plot was developed and the ending hit a curveball I never could have seen coming.

After a week of not finishing a book, I sat down and finished the last 90 pages of this in one sitting for a tiktok video instead of a weekly wrap up (watch it here if you like!) and that was the best way to end it for sure. The ending was spectacular and I immediately bought book 3 on my Kindle, but then I went into a charity shop in Oxford and found a physical copy! The book gods were smiling down on me and I managed to get a refund from Kindle and save myself a few pennies as well – win win for me!

A Touch of Darkness (Hades and Persephone #1) – Scarlett St Clair ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I think I saw this book on TikTok and added it to my ‘Want To Read’ list on StoryGraph, then when I had an Audible credit I had a browse through the list and picked it but wow, it was a sexy ride.

A modernisation of Hades and Persephone’s story in a fictional New Greece, college senior Persephone and club owner and Lord of the Underworld Hades’ story was a seductive and heartwarming new adult story about a goddess that just wants to fit in but can’t… because she’s a goddess.

It’s one of those where you know how it’s going to end, because it’s Hades and Persephone, but you’re not entirely sure how they’re going to get there. What I’m not sure about is what books 2, 3 and 4 are going to be about and I thought I was going to have to wait until next month’s audible credit comes in, but it’s on Kindle Unlimited so that’s definitely going to be one of my KU picks for August!

Heartstopper Volume 3 + Volume 4 – Alice Oseman ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I really struggle with mentally figuring out whether I should ‘let’ myself reread books because it feels like I’m wasting time I could be spending on working through my unread tbr, but I also know that I’ll enjoy rereading a book I’ve rated 5 stars…

But with series 2 of the Netflix show coming out next week and the nature of graphic novels meaning I could have read them both in one day (if I hadn’t developed tonsillitis over the weekend) as well as taking a trip up to see my mum at the weekend, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to fit in a quick reread before my heart absolutely breaks because Joe Locke and Kit Connor are the best casting I’ve ever seen in my life.

It’s not surprise these books maintained their 5 star ratings – I adore them, they make me squeal and kick my feet, they’re wholesome and heartwarming in equal balance to authentic and painful. I’m really intrigued as to how they’ll cover the mental health storyline in the series but realistically I should be more concerned with how much I’m going to cry, because I don’t tend to cry at anything so this will probably break me.

And unless I managed to listen to the entirety of 1984 or manage to read the remaining 40% of Bright Ruin (the third book in the Dark Gifts trilogy) I don’t think I’ll be able to squeeze another book into this month. I had two incredible months reading 11 books each, so a crash was due! The fact I still read seven books this month would seem like a huge deal to 2020 me that had just got back into reading. And I’ve just passed reading a total of 50 books read this year and honestly it feels mind blowing to have read so much and I’m really proud of myself!

Thank you for reading!

Sophie xx