monthly wrap up: september, ’20

Hello, friends!

I feel like it’s been a while since I last shared a monthly wrap up, but that’s because in August I ended up sharing my Latinx Readathon wrap up instead. Not that much happened in these two months, tbh, but I still enjoy these posts a ton!

HIGHLIGHTS

1. Uni is back – all online. I dread online school. Not that I like in-person school any better tbh, I dislike studying in general. But I don’t think I can focus the best at home and I also miss the in-person interactions with professors and classmates. I also have two extra classes than I’d have normally, since I need the extra credits, and decided to take advantage of the bonus time as I’ll be home anyway. To be honest, hating past me really hard with the amount of school work I now have to worry about, lol.

BOOKS I READ

I read a lot in September, so I’ll try to keep my thoughts brief, though, considering *it’s me*, that will be unlikely.

★★★★☆

I already have a full review up on my blog about Furia as I was part of the Colored Pages Book Tour for it. It was my first time ever being part of a Book Tour and while I don’t think it will be a reocurring thing in my blog, don’t worry, I loved the fact I had the chance to hype up Furia & also read it earlier which was surreal to me (my first time getting an arc, can you believe it?). I loved the book, by the way: the setting was relatable and wonderful, Camila was such a strong and phenomenal protagonist, and albeit the discussions on violence against women left me a bit disturbed, they were also immensely important.

★★★★★

I also *finally* read the companion novella to The Wolves of Mercy Falls – Sinner. This one follows Cole and Isabel, whom we know from the original trilogy, and it’s set in L.A as Cole is recording an album and also a reality TV show. Maggie Stiefvater’s way of creating unique and quirky characters, as well as her fantastic writing, never fail to make me feel everything. I loved this book in ways I can’t even express, but it gave me a lot more feelings than I expected, considering how long I spent apart from these characters.

★★☆☆☆

Take a Hint, Dani Brown was my adult romance of the month. I know it’s ridiculous to say I found this book to be too adult, when that is exactly what it sets itself to be, but I couldn’t bring myself to care about the things these characters were going through, like anxiously anticipating interviewing a professor, writing papers for your master’s degree, tutoring teenagers on toxic masculinity, etc, etc. Like, that’s all great, but my 19 year old self can not give a shit. I also found the dialogues to be really unrealistic and for a book about friends with benefits, it definitey lacked on sex scenes.

★★★★☆

Also, all thanks to Adri, I was successfully convinced to read Cemetery Boys – a YA Latinx fantasy that truly *served*. I absolutely loved the characters – Julian Diaz was hilariously amazing and my favorite, but Yádriel also made me feel all the things. I really appreciated how, admist all the fantasy elements, we also got to see Yádriel’s growth as he recognizes he deserves to be seen for who he really is and he doesn’t have to compromise all the time. I loved the family, as well as the friendships. This really was just amazing all-around and I was so happy to have read it.

★★★★☆

A Quiet Kind of Thunder had been repeatedly recommended by Marie and Olivia and I’m so glad I read it! I was surprised that this book also got to discuss friendships, family and grief wonderfully well, on top of disability and anxiety. Both of the characters’ motivations were incredibly fleshed out and, even though in any other scenario the spontaneous international trip without telling anyone would’ve annoyed me to death (it’s just the perfect recipe for things to go wrong), it made a lot of sense for these characters and I empathized with their reasoning. I’d say the only thing that bothered me was the fact that the sex scenes were just… the worst, lol.

★★☆☆☆

I ended up falling into sort of a slump, so it wasn’t the ideal moment to be reading anything, but I pushed through and finished Breath Like Water. I feel like in other circumstances, I’d have enjoyed this a lot more. It was clear the author knew very well how to write about swimming, in a way that didn’t feel overly poetic or overly technical, and it was the perfect in between. I found both of the characters interesting, but that was pretty much it. I hated how unrealistic the dialogues felt (Dr. Phil much?), how they erased the character’s responsibility for his actions because of his mental health issues, and the ending was beyond unsatisfying.

★★★★☆

I also finally picked up my first Emma Mills and Foolish Hearts ticked every single one of my boxes: enemies to friends, boybands and theatre kids. I’d say the only reason why I ended up not giving this one five stars was because I felt like the side characters were a bit meh, but I loved Claudia and Iris a lot and their friendship was the best. The concert chapter also made me cry – I miss going to concerts so much and it was the perfect reminder as to why I love music (and boybands) so much. I definitely want to read more of Emma Mills’ books after this one.

★★★☆☆

Lastly, I finished Frankly in Love this morning actually and it was *a ride*. I still stand by the fact this is a good book – I loved the writing and the way the author crafted the dialogues. It was definitely a powerful and ambitious story, but it did leave a bitter aftertaste, as I felt like the racist behavior of his parents was not properly challenged on page, the romance absolutely sucked for everyone and the overall writing of the female characters was weird. I think the overall marketing of this book is very misleading – it seems to be a cute fake-dating story, but it’s not cute at all and the romance is by far the worst part of the book.

MONTHLY PLAYLIST

I’ve determined that September will be the month where my playlist titles have to reference Rocketman. We’re still very much in the Hamilton track, I am falling in love with other tracks from folklore, RBD got into Spotify – finally – as well as the Jonas L.A. album. It’s been a month!

LOOKING FORWARD

October is my birthday month! I am lowkey depressed because I’ll be turning TWENTY years old which is just outrageous. I don’t really love my birthday, but hopefully birthday presents?