August Wrap Up

Life Update!

I started a new job this month! I got a job at the University of Rochester’s Barnes and Noble and I am officially a bookseller now! It was basically my dream job and I couldn’t be more thrilled to be surrounded by books and bookish people all day. I don’t have a ton of bookish friends in real life, so I am thrilled to meet some of them and get to work with them. I also get a discount, which will be coming in handy in the future!

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Books Read

I read a total of 8 books this month! That is pretty great because I started a new job this month! I try to aim for 10 books every month, but since I just started my job I think 8 is a pretty good number.

Some of my Netgalley Reviewathon TBR.

I participated in Netgalley’s Reviewathon and ARC August, so I was aiming to get through 14 titles and out of those titles I read 6 of them and two other titles. All the books I read were all ARCs this month, and the next two months will probably also be filled with ARCs as I am stocked with Fall titles. I have a goal to read one Brandon Sanderson title a month and I wanted to finish the Mistborn trilogy, but I didn’t get to the third book this month, so hopefully I will in September. So here are the titles I read this month!

If you click the titles it will take you to the book’s Goodreads page and “Check out my review” will take you to my review.

Here There Are Monsters by Amelinda Berube – 4 Stars — Check out my review!

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E Harrow – 5 Stars — Publication Date: September 10th, 2019 — Review to come closer to publication.

The Swallows by Lisa Lutz — 3 Stars — Check out my review!

There Will Come a Darkness by Katy Rose Pool — 4 Stars — Publication Date: September 3rd, 2019 — Check out my review!

The Girl the Sea Gave Back by Adrienne Young — 4 Stars — Publication Date: September 3rd, 2019 — Check out my review!

Tiger Queen by Annie Sullivan — 4 Stars — Publication Date: September 10th, 2019– Check out my review!

The Lady Rogue by Jenn Bennett — 3 Stars — Check out my review!

Only Ashes Remain by Rebecca Schaeffer — 4 Stars — Publication Date: September 3rd, 2019 — Look out for my review tomorrow!

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Total Pages

This month I read a total of 3072 pages! I didn’t expect to be able to get in that much reading with starting my new job, but some of the books that I read went really fast for me, so I only read 500 pages less than last month. Once again I would like to say that I don’t like to turn page counts or book counts into a competition against myself. I did have one 5 star read, which is great, but I would prefer to have two or more 5 star reads a month.

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Favorite Books Read

My favorite book of the month.

The books I loved the most this month were The Ten Thousand Doors of January and Only Ashes Remain. I had a lot of good 4 star reads this month, but not as many 5 star reads as I would prefer. This upcoming month I have a lot of titles that I am really looking forward to, so I hope for more 5 star reads in September!

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Top 3 Posts of August

My Top 5 Saturday series has really picked up, so out of the posts that I wrote this month my top three posts were all Top 5 Saturday posts!

1. Top 5 Books with Asian Settings I Want to Read
2. Top 5 Books about Assassins I Want to Read
3. Top 5 Books About Dragons I Want to Read

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Top 5 Saturday Topics for September

If you haven’t heard about my Top 5 Saturday series, it’s a series that I do every week that other bloggers can participate in. Each week I pick a topic and everyone shares their top 5 books of the current topic– these can be books that they want to read, have read and loved, have read and hated, they can do it any way they want. The more the merrier! I would love it if you joined! You can read about it a bit more here.

These are the topics for September:

9/7/19 — Summer Reads

9/14/19 — Set in Space

9/21/19 — Over 500 Pages 

9/28/19 — Books with Maps

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Stats

5,261 views (+674 from last month — 14.7% increase)

2,989 visitors (+280 from last month — 10.3% increase)

860 followers (+38 from last month — 4.6% increase)

Once again I had a record month! I am aiming to keep growing every month and lately that has been happening! I also gained about 40 blog followers this month which is absolutely fantastic. My How to get ARCs– A Guide post is still the number 1 on Google and bringing in about half of my traffic.

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September Goals

1. Update my How to get ARCs — A Guide post with more links and newer information.
2. Get 5,700-5,800 monthly blog views in September.
3. Get 900 blog followers. (Currently at 860.)
4. Get 3,200 blog visitors.
5. Read 10 books.
6. Read one Brandon Sanderson title — The Hero of Ages (Mistborn #3).
7. Take Bookstagram photos weekly.
8. Post 5 Bookstagram photos a week.
9. Get 880 followers on Bookstagram. (Currently at 852.) Follow me!
10. Get 1350 followers on Twitter. (Currently at 1200.) Follow me!
11. Write 2 reviews a week.
12. Complete 3-4 old book tags or awards. (I’ve been putting a lot of these off for a while)

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Let’s Chat!

How was your August? Did you hit any of your goals? Do you have any goals for September? Did anything exciting happen? What was your favorite read of the month? How many books did you get to? How many pages did you read? Make sure to comment below so we can chat about how August went blogging wise!