Bout of Books 17 [Goals + Progress]

This week, I will be working on my ARC August, which I posted about in my TBR list on the first day of August: here. I have too many Netgalley books that I need to read. I'm currently reading Sinner by Maggie Stiefvater (41%) and will continue with the next oldest one when I finish. I hope to read every single day and finish one book. I would love to go above and beyond that, but I am not trying to get my hopes up. I was on track after a really great month back in July, but I have fallen behind here in August.

[GOALS]
**Read a little every day
**Finish one book
**Get back on track with my Goodreads yearly challenge

[PROGRESS]
TOTAL PAGES READ: 242 | BOOKS FINISHED:1

Monday and Tuesday
Currently reading:

Pages read: 30
Thoughts: MON - I love that this aligns with ARC August. Desperately hoping to finish Sinner this week. I'm at 41% to start out with. TUES - I only got to 44% yesterday. I am really underwhelmed by this book. I loved the other 3, but I am not as fond with this one.

August Photo-a-Day Part 1: my month in pictures

I decided to do half of the month at a time because it's too much for me to try and do 30/31 pictures at once. So here is part 1 of August! The pictures go in order from the big one, then the top right pic and one underneath it. Then the bottom left and the one next to it.

Mason has figured out how to climb on the second shelf of the bookshelf // He's such a rotten little guy. He really is. // I got a Happy planner for $17. It's going to be my all pen planner so I don't have to write in my ECLP before I decorate it.

 

My sister-in-law Kat came into town with baby Ezra for my other sister-in-law's baby shower. Matt and Cami love their little cousin so much. // Kat and I decided to make a trip to the zoo with our littles.

July Photo-a-Day: my month in pictures

So I have decided to do these in two parts now per month because I am finding it more difficult to compile 30 pictures in a pinch and I feel like I can never get them up in a timely fashion. SO...with that being said, here is what my July looked like! A warning: there are a lot of Mason pictures!

We got an Olive Garden cheese grater. It is the best thing ever. // Mason has taken to hanging out with Cami and Matthew a lot now. He loves them so much. // Every time the lawn gets mowed, Mason and Saydee watch out the front window.

Little man is wild. He really is. // First time in the pool....he hated it. LOL

Books I Read in July

Outage by Ellisa Barr - 3.5 stars (finished 7/5)
BOOK 1 IN THE POWERLESS NATION TRILOGY
**I received an ecopy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.**

The book started off roughly. Dee, the 15 year old MC, was acting like a pouty 15 year old. Her parents are leaving for a cruise and Dee is dropped off on her Grandpa's farm. No computers, no cell phone reception, no internet. *cue world's tiniest violin* She decides to take off with his truck (how very kind of her), but doesn't know how to drive stick and stalls it. Grandpa catches her and instead of being angry, promises to teach her to drive it. He lets her take it into town to possibly meet some kids her age. On her way into town, she picks up an OMGSOCUTE hitchhiker who happens to be close to her age. They continue to head into town when she wrecks the truck. This is the EMP. From there, it all becomes chaos.

I personally loved this portion of the book that was dedicated to how things would really go down in an apocalyptic situation. I think it was more realistic that people were trying to help each other moreso than fend for themselves. I do think that Dee's complete 180-degree personality change was a far reach. I think that the love triangle that started was not accurately played out...one guy just steps aside and doesn't say anything after flirting with Dee and spending time with her?? Okay. Grandpa was such a sweet soul and probably my favorite character. I loved that the author went down the dark, gory road. I felt it made the story more authentic.

It takes a bit to get used to the third-person omniscient point-of-view because it's written so awkwardly. I don't know how else to explain it, but it took a lot of rereading for me to grasp what was going on at times. It could be quite uncomfortable at times to read.

August TBR List (ARC August) + Upcoming Releases

So I am scrapping my normal plan and simply reading Netgalley books for the month of August for ARC August hosted by Octavia and Shelly of Read. Sleep. Repeat. More information: here. I recently signed up for about 8 billion Netgalley books. I still have quite a few that are super old that I need to read, so my hope is to read a ton of them. Here are my reads in order of when I received them as per my Goodreads book log:

13 are old, 16 are new. That's still 29 galley copies to read and I better get started. Because I finished 7 books last month and I'm now only 1 book behind (I was actually on track for like a week!) on my Goodreads challenge, my goal is to finish 5 books. In the upcoming releases, I noted which books I have from Netgalley by noting with two asterisks.

You Before Anyone Else // Wake the Hollow // Wax // Enter Title Here**

A Week of Mondays // It Ends With Us // All We Have Left** // Nevernight

The Architect of Song // A Beautiful Funeral // Curious Minds // The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo 

100 Days // Unraveled // For This Life Only // The Forms of Things Unknown** // Furthermore

What books do you hope to read this month?

What releases are you excited for?