August wrap-up

It’s already the 4th of September and August is definitely over. I’m currently in the middle of an assignment that is taking over my life, but I’d already half-written this post and thought I could just finish it today. August was an okay month – nothing really of significance happened to me!

Books read

August was quite an awful month for the books I read – I ended up not enjoying most of them. I read four books and did not finish two. It’s kind of rare that I DNF a book – maybe twice or so a year – so one after the other was really weird.

A Thousand Perfect Notes by C.G. Drews

Rating: 3/5

A Thousand Perfect Notes follows a young boy, Beck, who is forced by his mother to become successful in playing the piano. What I liked about this novel was that the story was interesting and kept me captivated. The interactions between Beck and August were cute and not boring or forced. However, the character of August seemed slightly off to me.

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

Rating: 2/5

Thirteen Reasons Why is a young adult novel about a boy named Clay who finds thirteen tapes narrated by his friend Hannah who committed suicide a few weeks earlier. I didn’t enjoy this book because I had problems with the depiction of mental health and the narration style.

Foster by Claire Keegan

Rating: 4/5

Foster is a novella about a girl who goes to live with another family after her own in the moment are unable to. It was a great story, even though there wasn’t really anything overly shocking about it. The message and themes were more important. You can read it for free here.

What We Left Behind by Robin Talley

Rating: DNF

Him by Clare Empson

Rating: DNF

Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire

Rating: 1/5

I was not a fan of this new adult romance novel at all. I absolutely hated Travis, who came across as very aggressive and manipulative when he was supposed to be considered cute and romantic. NO.

Me after reading Beautiful Disaster

Currently Reading

I am currently reading THREE books. I hate reading more than one book at a time, but sometimes it is necessary. The first book I started was an e-ARC, but when I catch the train I need something physical to read, which is why I picked up Stone Girl. But then I had to read The Virgin Suicides for an assignment, so Stone Girl has been cast aside (it’s really good though!).

• What if it’s Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera
• Stone Girl by Eleni Hale
• The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

September TBR

I only have two books on my TBR because I’m already reading three and, let’s face it, I don’t read that much.

• Moral Hazard by Kate Jennings (uni read)
• All Your Perfects by Colleen Hoover

Movies I watched

In August I didn’t really watch anything extraordinary, except for the movie I talk about below. The movies I watched, including my ratings, were: Mamma Mia! (8/10), Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (9/10), The Dictator (7/10), Passengers (7/10), To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (7.5/10) and Like Father (6/10). I’m a big fan of romance movies and I liked To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before but I think I would have appreciated it more when I was younger. I also thought Passengers had a really cool premise and was visually pleasing, but I found it to be a little weird that the romance in the film was built on deception.

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018)

I loved the first movie as a kid, but the night before going to see the sequel I rewatched it for the first time in many years. It was much cheesier than I remembered! Seeing the sequel was a different experience – I actually liked it more than the original. I listened to ABBA a lot growing up because my mum liked their music, and still today I get excited when I hear an ABBA song. My favourites are “Super Trouper”, “The Name of the Game” and “Waterloo”.

Writing update

I honestly love my WIP at the moment and writing it is so fun. HOWEVER, I am in a bit of a pickle. I am writing a thesis and I have noticed that I am pretty much expected to be constantly working on it!! So I can write maybe once a week on my WIP. Also, I am doing a four-day creative writing intensive subject later in the month and had to write a 1000-word short story. That is not much but I was stressing over it because I wanted something to submit that wouldn’t be embarrassing for me when the class reads and discusses it (workshop embarrassment has happened to me before, many times!). Writing my WIP is on the back-burner while I do my thesis, which doesn’t end until May 2019…unfortunately. Except NaNoWriMo is slowly approaching, so who knows what will happen?

I hope that everyone has a good September!

Have you read any of these books? Or watched any of these movies?