August wrap up

So, phew, August went by fast. I did a lot of reading in the beginning of the month, expanded my yearly reading goal to 60 books (was I perhaps too overconfident? Because I hardly read anything after I changed my reading goal). It was a good reading month, though, and I discovered some of my new favourites.

What I read

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

This was a fun, imperfect adventure story. I mean, there’s a lot of infodumping and the story is narrated by a scientist so obsessed with marine biology who doesn’t care that he may probably be imprisoned in an undersea submarine for life. And Captain Nemo might be one of my favourite characters. I wrote a review for this a couple of weeks ago, you can read it here! My rating: ★★★★✩ (3.5 stars)

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

I…did not like this book a whole lot…[gunshot]. It’s like a sad, bittersweet and angsty poem, a letter written from a son to his mother who can’t read English. I really liked the first third of the book, but then I lost interest in the last two thirds, which led to me forcing myself to finish this book after trying for around a month. Unrated because I really have a lot of mixed feelings about this.

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

Murderbot my beloved killing machine (not). I really should get into reading the rest of these books: they’re short, they’re fun, and also, Murderbot is incredibly relatable as a socially awkward person who generally wants to avoid other human beings. Needless to say I loved reading this one. My rating: ★★★★✩ (4 stars)

Yolk by Mary H. K. Choi

I think the writing style is the reason I couldn’t wholeheartedly enjoy this – the same reason I DNF’ed Permanent Record. The story, though? It’s raw, it’s real and sometimes painful, but hey, that’s life. The antagonistic sisterly relationship between Jayne and June really stuck with me, as someone who has two sisters. My rating: ★★★✩✩ (3 stars)

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

I really did think maybe the reviews were exaggerating when they called The Poppy War life changing etc etc, but they may have a point, as I stayed up a whole night to finish reading this. I haven’t been that invested in a book for a long time. This book is full of compelling, terrible people who you can’t help but root for because they have gone through so much, and it shows the horrors of war without holding back one bit. Seriously, check the trigger warnings before you dive into it. My rating: ★★★★★ (5 stars)

The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri

Blame it on the reading slump.The first few chapters of this book were so good and the magic system was so intriguing, but then I started to get bored because I didn’t like any of the characters. Also, I hated the chapters in the POV of the men, this should’ve been narrated by Priya, Malini and Bhumika. My rating: ★★★✩✩ (2.5 stars)

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam Joo

There are some books that make you feel sad and angry at the same time, and this is one of those. The book is short, the prose simple and harsh and so true. The story is about sexism, but the kind of sexism that goes unnoticed usually, all the little things women endure that they shouldn’t have to. Definitely recommend. My rating: ★★★★✩ (4 stars)

Little Thieves by Margaret Owen

Finally, a YA fantasy book that I enjoyed from start to finish. It has something I like best about stories: a group of people who hurt each other reluctantly having to rely on each other to survive. Peak found family. It’s loosely based on The Goose Girl, and it has morally grey characters, magic and plenty of shenanigans. I might be reviewing this sometime. My rating: ★★★★★ (5 stars)

What I watched

Spirit: Stallion of Cimarron: I loved it! It’s a very quiet movie, where the ‘humans’ speak roughly for around 10% of the whole film. It’s still breathtakingly beautiful and very…soulful.

How to Train Your Dragon: I finally watched this after my sister bugged me about it for a hundred years. I liked it a lot! Unfortunately I feel zero inspiration to watch the other two films lol.

Paper Girls: this is an EXTREMELY underrated story about 4 twelve year old girls who travel into the future and get caught in the middle of a time war. Watch it guys!

Birds of Prey: crazily chaotic and really funny and so damn colourful. I loved it, despite the gore and Ewan McGregor playing the sleaziest villain ever. Girl power!

Star Wars: The Bad Batch: I wanted to watch the animated Star Wars series but the many seasons of The Clone Wars and Rebels scared me so I started with the show that has only one season released. It’s cute and fun and I like all the characters.

The Sandman: Current source of brainrot. I didn’t think I’d love it this much, but here we are. It’s dark and downright disturbing at times (wtf was episode 5) but then it is so heartwarming and dreamy (heh). Rather than one continuous story it feels like a bunch of short stories all connected to a satisfying ending. Also, that duel between Morpheus and Lucifer? Loved it.

Apart from these I’ve also watched bits of Titanic, Hotel Transylvania, about twenty different Bollywood movies I can’t remember the names of.

I did a bit of drawing this month because I realized that I have Paint on my work computer and I churned out these:

hanthana, in ms paint pic.twitter.com/4PJMftIdXH

— jan (@ink_spun) August 10, 2022

bald eagle 🙂 pic.twitter.com/Vq3RInEv7K

— jan (@ink_spun) August 11, 2022

it's a bit messy but i love it pic.twitter.com/xjh5axOdmO

— jan (@ink_spun) August 24, 2022

On blogging

My blog turned two years old in the beginning of August, and I published two blog posts in celebration.

Then I reviewed Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

Life update

I finally got my A levels results last week. I scored more than I thought I would, although I do wish it has been something just a bit higher. Everyone is asking me what I’m going to do next (honestly? I have no idea. Stop asking.) I have till the end of September to officially leave school and apply to universities (the hypocrisy. They took six months to give the results and we only have twenty days.)

Literally nothing else happened in August. Let’s see if I stuck with my goals I set last month.

• Read 6+ books ✔
• Blog consistently ❌ hahaha nope
• Eat more and drink more ❌
• Learn to drive ✔ I can drive a bit decently now and I’ve done a medical test too, so all I have to do now is to apply for the licence.

How was your month of August? What was your favourite book?

Wishing you all a pleasant month ahead,

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