August 2020 Reading Wrap-up // Personal Update

Hello friends! It is that time of the month again, it’s wrap-up season. Today I’m sharing my wrap-up a little differently and also sitting down for a minute to share an update about my life. August was a rough month and, as an understatement, that reading I got done reflects that.

August has been a huge month of change for me. First, I had a falling out with my closest friend. For those of you who have also been through a best friend break-up then you’d know just how hard and painful it can be. A large reason for my lack of reading and activity has been because of this as I’ve been giving myself time to heal and cope. Luckily, within the past few days a lot of my drive to blog and post on Instagram has been back, which is why I’m here again! I’m crossing my fingers that soon enough my will to read will come back too, but at the moment I’m not pushing myself. This has been a rough month of heartbreak and I know things can only go up from here.

The other big thing that happened this month was I started school! As I decided to study remotely this semester I began my online college courses about three weeks ago (and I start my one high school class next week). Shockingly, this has been really good for me thus far! It’s given me a sense of schedule and normalcy that was much needed.

So! That was my little life update, and if you’ve stuck it out to here then it’s officially time to dive into my very shallow pool of books I read in August 2020.

The books I read in August are:

• A Wicked Magic by Sasha Laurens 1/5 stars DNF
• This Lie Will Kill You by Chelsea Pitcher 3/5 stars
• Now & When by Sara Bennett Wealer 1/5 stars DNF

A Wicked Magic by Sasha Laurens

Unfortunately, I DNFed this book very early on. I struggled to connect with the writing and it didn’t hold my attention. The story itself sounds very interesting and I hope that one day I may get to revisit this story, but for now I am putting it aside as I don’t see any point in forcing myself into reading a book I’m not feeling since I know that’ll make reading it feel miserable. 1/5 stars DNF

* Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an e-Arc via Netgalley! Opinions are all my own.

This Lie Will Kill You by Chelsea Pitcher

TW: drowning, murder, emotional abuse, violence, drinking

My feelings about this book are very very mixed! It was overall very spooky and haunting, but I had a few big issues with it. At times the dialogue and characters were inauthentic and the ending was confusing to me. While it wasn’t a great book, it did still serve a lot of scares and plot twists! This story would be perfect to pick up closer to Halloween. 3/5 stars

Now & When by Sara Bennett Wealer

TW: self harm & suicide

I am very disappointed about this book, to say the least. The reason I put it down is because it lacked a trigger warning that I feel it needed to have. The details it provided and discussions it had over the topic often came out of nowhere and included specific details that made me upset. While it is important to feature books with these subjects I think the way these details were handled could have been better, and that a trigger warning should have been placed on the book. I don’t think this would have been such an issue for me if they didn’t seem to come out of nowhere. The topic was brought up randomly whenever a certain side character was around, rather than an actual discussion, and the little random comments and mentions of it made it hard for me to continue reading. 1/5 stars DNF

* Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an e-arc via Netgalley! Opinions are all my own

And just like that, it’s September! I’m crossing my fingers for a better month ahead.

What books did you read in August? Have you read any of the ones I mentioned here? Leave a comment and talk about books with me!