July was a super stressful month on the home front. My mom had a major surgery, and I spent a bunch of time rushing back and forth between the hospital, on the phone trying to coordinate care for her, and trying to meet her needs while still working to practice whatever self-care I could. Reading was officially my escape, and fortunately I found some really amazing books. Here’s some of the highlights of the month:

• I went from 607 blog followers to 632, which is a big bump for me. I’m grateful to each and every follower I have!
• I read 8 books that I own, and 2 of those were backlist reads that have been languishing on my shelves. I consider that good progress.
• I read 4 nonfiction books this month, one on the topic of abortion and two memoirs about disability in honor of Disability Pride Month.
• As far as diversity, I think I did a pretty good job incorporating diverse books, reading those written by LGBTQ, Asian, Indigenous, Black, Jewish, and Latinx authors (featuring main characters with those identities), and I think this is by far my favorite and most enjoyable goal of the year.

Here’s my breakdown of monthly/cumulative totals for July:

July Totals:

• Books read: 37
• Books DNF’d: 1
• Pages read: 7,994
• Hours listened: 6 days, 22 hours, 18 minutes
• Average pages: 399.7
• Average hours listened: 9 hours, 46 minutes

Cumulative Averages:

• Days per book: 2.55
• Pages read per day: 97.34
• Books read per month: 42
• DNF’d books per month: 0.43

Genres Read in July:

• Biography/Memoir: 3
• Fantasy: 13
• General Fiction: 1
• Historical Fiction: 7
• Horror: 1
• Mystery/Suspense: 4
• Romance/Erotica: 7
• Social Science: 1

Backlist vs. New Releases:

• Backlist books: 16
• 2022 releases: 21

Fiction Vs. Nonfiction:

• Fiction: 33
• Nonfiction: 4

Format Read:

• Print: 10
• Digital: 10
• Audio: 16

Age Range:

• Adult: 29
• YA: 7

My favorite books of the month were Babel by R.F. Kuang, Self-Made Boys by Anna-Marie McLemore, and The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen.

Here’s what I read in July:

• Babel, or The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution by R.F. Kuang (ARC)
• Honey and Spice by Bolu Babalola (ALC)
• Dead Water by C.A. Fletcher (ARC)
• Those Summer Nights by Laura Silverman (ARC)
• Thank You for Listening by Julia Whelan (ALC)
• You’re the Only One I’ve Told: The Stories Behind Abortion by Dr. Meera Shah
• Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
• The Oleander Sword by Tasha Suri (Burning Kingdoms #2)
• Self-Made Boys: A Great Gatsby Remix by Anna-Marie McLemore (Remixed Classics #5) (ARC)
• The House with the Golden Door by Elodie Harper (Wolf Den Trilogy #2) (ARC)
• The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen (ARC)
• Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan
• She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan (The Radiant Emperor #1)

• The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
• The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
• Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty (ALC)
• Ten Thousand Stitches by Olivia Atwater (Regency Faerie Tales #2) (ARC)
• Belladonna by Adalyn Grace (Belladonna #1) (ARC)
• The Last Girl to Die by Helen Sarah Fields (ARC)

• Please Join Us by Catherine McKenzie (ARC)
• Some Maintenance Required by Marie-Renée Lavoie (ALC)
• The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
• Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber (Once Upon a Broken Heart #1)
• The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness by Meghan O’Rourke
• Shipped by Angie Hockman

• The Last to Vanish by Megan Miranda (ALC)
• Three Kisses, One Midnight by Roshani Chokshi, Sandhya Menon, and Evelyn Skye (ARC)

• The Art of Prophecy by Wesley Chu (The War Arts Saga #1) (ARC)
• Turned by Michelle Fox
• Ithaca by Claire North (Penelope #1) (ARC)
• Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed 

• From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout (Blood and Ash #1)
• Ice Planet Barbarians by Ruby Dixon (Ice Planet Barbarians #1)
• Six Feet Deep Dish by Mindy Quigley (ARC)

• Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (ALC)

• The Reader by Traci Chee (Sea of Ink and Gold #1) — reread
• The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper (Wolf Den Trilogy #1) — reread
• Defy the Night by Brigid Kemmerer (Defy the Night #1) — reread