My July 2020 TBR

TBRs and me have a troubled past. Sometimes, it’s a blessing. Most times, it’s a curse. But I’m a reader and a blogger and when it comes to accountability and ensuring that the books I present are read, I need it. I’ve been dictated by my mood way too often and whenever I do, my reading always suffers. And someone with way too many unread books filling her shelves than ones I’ve actually read, I need to do something about it.

This month, I’m committing to reading 17 books. I feel like this is a very high goal for me especially since I read so many big books and I read slowly, but I’m also committing to spending less time on my phone and more time in my books. Like I mentioned in my wrap up, I spent on average 7 hours a day looking at my phone. That’s outrageous! So I’ll be trading my time spent on my phone to read. Let’s get into what I’ll be reading. This list won’t include my current buddy read of Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X Kendi being held on Instagram. Here’s a compiled list of all the books I want to read in July:

• Hawk by James Patterson
• Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron
• The Damned by Renee Ahdieh
• An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
• The Extraordinaries by TJ Klune
• Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell
• Running by Natalia Sylvester
• Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan
• Courting Darkness by Robin LaFevers
• Blue Ticket by Sophie Mackintosh
• Mexican Gothic by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia
• Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier
• Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas
• A Song of Wraiths and Ruins by Rebecca Brown
• How to Save a Life by Lisa and Liz
• A Cowboy to Remember by Rebekah Weatherspoon
• Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

If you’re interested in reading more about why I picked these books, I’ve organized these reads by category. Please enjoy this exhaustive explanation I put together for every book I chose to read this month. I put a lot of work into curating my TBR so that it’s inclusive, it checks off my unread shelf, and they’re enjoyable!

Books I’ll Be Promoting

I wanted there to be some more transparency about 1) how I get my books 2) why I receive certain books over others. For the most part, I don’t really request books from the publisher. I get a lot of books for promotion that I concentrate my time on what I’ll be promoting than what I want to read for review. I’m making it an effort to read the books I’ll be promoting so that my voice feels genuine on Instagram and on the blog. For July, I signed up for three book tours and a promotional reread of another. These books are:

• Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron
• An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
• Courting Darkness by Robin LaFever
• Hawk by James Patterson

Cinderella is Dead, Courting Darkness, and Hawk will be read for promotional book tours I’ve signed up for on Instagram. I’m very excited to read these books (and Cinderella is Dead will be my first read of the month), but these might be the last tours I sign up for. While I love promoting new books for people to check out and possibly purchase, I also want there to be some more authenticity in my reading on my Instagram page. It’s just a personal choice I’m making so that I don’t feel like just a salesperson.

An Ember in the Ashes will be a fun readalong happening throughout the month of July. I’ll be sharing thoughts and photos every weekend in hopes to pump everyone up for Sabaa Tahir’s fourth book in the series. This will actually be my first time reading this series, so I can’t wait to get started!

Netgalley Books

I talk about this all the time, but my Netgalley score is 7%. It’s atrocious! But if I were to request any books for review, it would be through Netgalley. While I know I can email publishers and use the traditional method of requesting books, I prefer Netgalley. I think it’s because there’s more e-galleys publishers are able to give away and while the process is still elusive to me, I feel like it’s a little bit more fair? That’s just my opinion though. With the pandemic and many promotional books being sent via Netgalley, my score just kept getting worse and worse. So I’ll be focusing some of my monthly reads to lower this score. I want my reviews to be timely to when the book is about to publish or around its publishing date. The books I’ve chosen to read this month are:

• The Damned by Renee Ahdieh
• Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell
• Running by Natalia Sylvester
• Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan
• Blue Ticket by Sophie Mackintosh
• Mexican Gothic by Syvia Moreno-Garcia
• Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier

Mind you, I’m excited to read all of these books. I don’t want you to think that me reading Netgalley books is some chore I have to do. I want to read these books and it’ll be great to also raise my Netgalley score while I do it.

I’m extremely excited about Mexican Gothic, Pizza Girl, and Running. I’ve already seen so many positive reviews about Mexican Gothic and Pizza Girl. However, I’ve also read negative reviews for both and whenever that happens, I need to read the book and make up my own mind.

Sex and Vanity was also picked for Good Morning America’s book club. I’m so excited to be reading this and joining in on their discussions. I can’t wait to see what other people said about this book too because I remember reading reviews of Crazy Rich Asians and being super dissatisfied with the way people described this book.

Book Club Books

Not only do I read constantly, but I’m also in two different book clubs. One focuses reads written by women and the other focuses on romances. Both of the books chosen this month for those book clubs are big anticipated reads for me too. I can’t wait to see what these books are about and discuss them with my book club friends. They are:

• A Cowboy to Remember by Rebekah Weatherspoon
• Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas

First off, I’ve never read a cowboy romance ever. I don’t know what to expect from it, but judging by the fact the dude on the cover has a 12-pack (which I didn’t even know was physically possible), I have a feeling this is going to be good.

Catherine House has been on my TBR since May. And yet, every month it gets put off because my mood changes and I don’t want to read a gothic story. Well, that’s about to change especially now that I HAVE to read as well as want to read it. I can’t wait.

The Rest

While I have a huge list of books to read, I always want to sneak in some books I want to read for myself. The rest of the books here are just that. These are the books that caught my eye recently and want to get into. I’m worried with all the other books that these books will be cast off, but if I go at the rate I’m going, I think I can squeeze these books in.

• A Song of Wraiths and Ruins by Roseanne A Brown
• Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
• How to Save a Life by Lisa and Liz
• The Extraordinaries by TJ Klune

And that is my TBR. I know this blog post is a doozy, but if you made it this far, then yay! Thanks for coming to my TBR talk.