August Reading Wrap Up – and Another Hiatus

August is the first month this year that’s actually felt like a long one! The summer’s stretched out beautifully this month, I’ve got lots of reading done, and the house stress has finally lightened up a bit.

That being said, as you can see from the title, I will be taking another month’s hiatus in September – the start of the new school year is always a real adjustment for our family as we have to readapt to juggling work and home life, plus I have a writing deadline at the end of the month, so I think this year it makes sense to put one of my spinning plates down in advance! I’ve got a couple of blog tours booked in, and I may throw up the odd post if I get a moment, but otherwise I’ll be pretty quiet on the blog until the start of October (when Hallowreadathon returns!).

Okay, with that out of the way, shall we see how my reading’s stacked up this month?

Books read:

I read 41 books in August, bringing me up to 291 books for the year so far. This means my ‘read this year’ has surpassed the number of books left on my TBR, which is a cool moment! I’m nicely ahead of my goal percentage-wise: 66% of the year is done, but 72.25% of the books. I’ve been reading in fits and starts this month, including one weekend where I barely even touched a book. There have been some great reads, too, like Casey Blair’s A Coup of Tea, and Sara Mueller’s The Bone Orchard – both stories that will stick with me for different reasons!

In September I’d like to give myself a bit of a break, so I’m aiming for anything over 20 books. This way, if I feel like tucking into something longer, or taking a few days just to watch TV, I’ve got some breathing space.

Owned TBR:

In August I wanted to get my TBR down to at least 285, and I did manage it – just! It’s now sitting at exactly 285, which means I definitely have less than a year’s worth of books left (though of course, they just keep coming in). I think it was helped by August being a fairly quiet month for new releases too – certainly it’s felt pretty light on bookpost. 31 books came in in August, and I read 11 of them, so there are 20 new August books going forward on the TBR.

It is, however, always shocking to realise that the overall downwards trend is so small, when I’ve done so much reading. I’m only 14 books lower than I was on January 1st, despite having read nearly 300 books! It’s been eye-opening to really see how quickly new books come in and undo my hard work. For September, I’d like to continue this downward progress, but I don’t want to set too high a goal, so just getting under 280 would be great.

Reading Challenges:

I read two more books from my August challenge, An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors by Curtis Craddock, which I mostly loved, and A Bitter Drink by Azalea Forrest, which I didn’t get on with so much.

No reading challenge for September, due to the hiatus. I’d like a chance to totally mood read!

Blog posts:

Lots of posts this month – in fact I think it’s the first month this year that I’ve managed to post every weekday! Here are my reviews, in case you missed any:

Alliana, Girl of Dragons by Julie Abe

From the Abyss by DK Broster

Green for Danger by Christianna Brand

Starfell – Willow Moss and the Magic Thief by Dominique Valente

Out of the Blue by Jason June

Skyward Flight by Brandon Sanderson and Janci Patterson

Clockwork Boys and The Wonder Engine by T Kingfisher

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna

The Seat of the Scornful by John Dickson Carr

Strange Relics, edited by Amara Thornton and Katy Soar

Waking the Witch by Rachel Burge

Sirena by Gideon Marcus

The Blood Trials by NE Davenport

Spellstoppers by Cat Gray

Plus one set of Middle Grade Mini-Reviews, my A is for August Mid-Month Check In, two Kitten Corner posts, here and here, and two round ups of mini-reviews of my historical romance windfall books, here and here.

So there we have it. What did you get up to in August? Read anything good? I’d love to be linked to your wrap up posts if you have them, or just to hear about your reading in the comments!