July 2023 Reading Recap

I can’t believe July 2023 is over! If you’re reading this, I’m about to head on vacation, and while I’m sure that’s going to throw my reading off, I’m still excited. Reflecting on a little more than half a year so far, I’m pretty impressed with how I’ve kept up with my reading goals! My audiobook goal has fallen a bit off, but otherwise…I’m doing good. My spreadsheet tracking system is strong, I’ve fit in short story collections, I’ve been good about DNF’ing books, and I don’t think I’ve bought a single sequel I haven’t read the first book for all year. Have I acquired them for free? YES—but that doesn’t count, haha.

Let’s review then, shall we?

In July 2023, I read/read most of a total of 63 books.

That included:

• 39 picture books or picture book biographies
• 5 prose novels
• 2 short story collections
• 2 essay collections
• 2 non-fiction adult titles
• 9 easy readers

Upon counting, I realized I did not actually include some of the titles I DNF’d in award consideration this month. Oops. Not the end of the world–I read probably 75 pages or less of each of those titles, but that’s why my adult prose reading looks less than it actually was.

I reviewed 3 books for Booklist this month, started an audiobook but didn’t get very far into it, read a ton of little books for Capitol Choices, and yet read only a single graphic novel this month. Sad!

I’m looking forward to my vacation where I’ll be reading a ton of books that aren’t picture books, so my numbers may not be as “high” next month. I’m going to try and be better about adding in ALL the books I DNF, even if I just barely started them.

My favorite book this month (that I can talk about) was probably Simon and the Better Bone by Corey Tabor. It’s a picture book, reads uniquely, and was just a joy to read!

How was your reading in July 2023? What are your goals for August?