My Very Short July Reading Wrap Up!

For some reason, July has been a slow reading month for a majority, and whether this is because of the sudden change in weather, the end of school/college, etc, I don't know. I only ended up reading four books last month, and one book that crossed over into August ( that I'm still barely passed halfway with!). Enough rambling, lets get into my July reads!

I'm very sorry for the lack of photos, by the way! I'll try my best for the upcoming posts to provide photos! 

"Misery" by Stephen King. 

After reading "Carrie" by him, I was still in a bit of a reading slump but something about King's writing had me hooked and no other book really appealed to me. I watched a review by InkyLeaves (Becky) on YouTube from years ago, and the way she talked about it appealed to me so much, I decided that who cares about my rule of not reading the same author back to back, I'm just going to jump right into it! The first half of the story was really, really slow, but somehow he manages to write about (mostly) two characters in a way that chilled you, and kept you entertained...at least for the second half. 

"Coraline" by Neil Gailman. 

By this point, I was in the mood for something creepy but I wanted to get out of this and move onto other things as I was saving my creepy reads for my October reading month and this one seemed perfect for the job, as it's been sitting on my shelves for a while. The cover is so stunningly beautiful that it was hard to turn away from it, and the story was just as magical. It was written very fast paced, and I'm not new to Gailman so this didn't push me off. It's exactly the kind of book I would have loved to had known about when I was young enough to read this. 

"A Monster Calls" by Patrick Ness. 

Guys...this book, I am still raving about and it's been a while since I've read it. I picked it up when bored, after finishing watching a movie with Austin, the book just staring at me from the corner of the armchair. I began to read...and read...and read and read and read. By the time I had finished it, it was 3am, tears were streaming down my face and I had great difficulty sleeping after feeling like I had just been pulled through a bush made of thorns. Very beautifully written, and I would recommend to everyone. And I don't usually like popular, hyped up books. 

"A Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank. 

I was reading this alongside the other three books pretty much for most of July, and only finished it a couple of days ago. It was beautiful and heartbreaking, just like I remembered it to be. She is so wise for her age and I'm sad to know that we will never see her in her adult form. Her death was in such unfortunate circumstances, something that could have been avoided and something that, if she was in a "slightly better" concentration camp, she and her sister Margot might have even survived the end of the war. A devastating read, but a crucial one, especially to young girls. 

"Alfie: The Doorstep Cat" 

This book I really, really wanted to love. It's about a cat, called Alfie, who was abandoned as his owner died of old age. Heartbroken, but not wanting to go to a shelter, he spends a little time out on the streets before finding a road where he finds people who need him just as much as he needs them. Sounds interesting, huh? An interesting premise just not written well enough to keep me hooked and I ended up having to move on to another book that I have been wanting to read for a while. I am not going to DNF it just yet. I will plough on through, and hope that by the end of August, we are through with it.

Thank you so much for reading, and I will see you all tomorrow for my Monday Missions post, bye!