September Wrap Up

Hey friends!

I feel like every month I’m posting my monthly wrap-ups later and later, but the truth is this month I at least have an excuse for that! I found a small, sunny and cozy (and cheap) apartment that’s like, everything I could have ever wished for. I was so lucky to find it (it literally only took me half an hour of searching, wrote the person, saw the place, and I was approved to rent it), which is rare in the city where I live because the search for an apartment can sometimes take >6 months (I’m not kidding). So in the last week of September I was busy with all kinds of bureaucratic stuff (and not just about the apartment thing), which is always great (read: not great) for my anxiety. But, I did it and I moved and now I can finally write this post (which, if you don’t know, wrap-ups are usually the posts that take me the longest to write).

(why do I always use so many parentheses)

Side note, I guess this intro is ultimately not relevant to the purpose of this book blog but it’s uhh, my blog and I do what I want?? Okay cool glad we agree.

As I write this I’m realizing I’m one month behind on replying to blog comments, and for that I apologize to anyone who left a lovely comment, especially in my August Wrap-Up. I get a bit overwhelmed when the post/comments are a bit more personal so I kept postponing replying until I forgot and was too busy to think about blogging. I’m setting it as a goal to reply to all unreplied (?) comments by the end of this week.

Intros aside, I know you’re all here for books so let’s get right into it with one of my amazing Paint jobs (directly taken from the Goodreads yearly challenge page thingy, so read chronologically from bottom to top).

📚 12 books read total

○ 2 graphic novel issues + one (ongoing) webcomic

○ 1 audiobook

○ 1 reread

○ 4 ARCs

This ain’t too bad, but considering that in July and August I’d read >25 books each month, it feels a little underwhelming. I guess that’s just what happens when you’re not on holiday anymore and start taking care of your IRL stuff, ahah ah..ah………ah.

I’m still proud of reading 4 ARCs and managing to balance reading “because I have to” with reading for pleasure. Also, just looking at the image above I get so nostalgic of the beginning of September, when I was still in Italy and I was doing a lot of reading at the beach. Is it just me or do books you read at the beach gain like, 0.5-1 extra enjoyment stars once you rate them?

As for the actual average quality of books, I’d say it’s pretty high although maybe not the best I’ve had in a month.

📖 Counterpoint by Anna Zabo (ARC) – I loved this book so much, it was literally everything I was hoping it would be. ★★★★★/5 | my review

📖 Darkling by Brooklyn Ray – I’ve read this novella too fast to be able to properly review it but it’s basically about a queer group of witches and it features a MM romance between a trans guy and one of the witches in his circle and it’s just?? so well-written and I enjoyed it a lot. ★★★★★/5

📖 The Pursuit of… by Courtney Milan – it’s been more than a month and I’m still recovering from how fucking cute this was okay??? It’s about a Black American soldier and a British officer in the war of independence travelling together and falling in love and I just loved this so so so so much I can’t even describe it. I wouldn’t even classify this as enemies to lovers because Henry is too much of a puppy to be anyone’s enemy and omg please I want to reread it right now. ★★★★★/5

📖 Fence #10 by C.S. Pacat and Johanna the Mad – OKAY BUT THAT ENDING. It’s hard to say whether this is my favorite issue so far but it’s certainly one in which the fandom was fed so good. Finally some Seijicholas development and I’m here for it. ★★★★★/5

📖 Vicious by V.E. Schwab (reread) – I reread in preparation for Vengeful and it was even better than the first time. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to explain why that is, but sometimes when a book is perfect I need to read it a second time just to be able to really process it more than its perfection (or at least what for me makes it a perfect book), if that makes sense? ★★★★★/5

I’m currently only actively reading L’Ascesa dei Re (Captive Prince #3) which is the Italian translation of Kings Rising by C.S. Pacat, which in case you’re new around here is my favorite book trilogy. I decided to read this because I still needed to finish my Italian re-read before I can read it all again (maybe skipping book #1) in English, and because I love rereading my most favorite books when I’m too busy to even talk much to my friends and mutuals. Reading this in a time where a lot is changing for me personally (new house, new life plan, etc) keeps me grounded and gives me something familiar to cling to when I feel like my anxiety is trying to take over. Needless to say reading it in my first language makes me feel even More Things than in English and I’m basically crying every few pages but like, in a good way.

I didn’t think I would manage to blog much but although I didn’t really follow a regular schedule I did write some posts.

📜 I participated in two fun T5W topics: favorite friend groups and books for my younger self

📜 I wrote my Counterpoint review

📜 I shared my list of books with bisexual protagonists in honor of Bi Visibility Day, a post that was probably overdue but I’m still proud of.

As for this month, I have some time-sensitive stuff that’s scheduled to go live at various points of the month, and I hope that in the meantime I can also work on more posts but I’m not going to pressure myself one way or another because this month is A Lot for me IRL.

The only movie I’ve watched was The Feels (2017) which I would totally recommend for a more adult audience since it does talk a lot about sex. I really enjoyed it and it was very very gay and it’s basically about this weekend-long (or was it week? idk anymore but you get it) party before two girls’ wedding (!!) with their friends and like, all sort of stuff comes up and I realize this is very vague but I’m trying to keep it PG. Anyway, even though it’s about sapphic girls it has a happy ending (!!!!!!!!!) and I really enjoyed the humor but also the more serious stuff. I also thought the acting was very natural and that’s something I like too.

 

I briefly started watching Lucifer and I must say it’s really good and although I haven’t continued it in a few weeks I’m looking forward to watching more. It’s not the most bingeable thing after a few episodes because they kind of follow the same scheme every time (sort of like a police investigation thing but with Lucifer being Lucifer) but I think the main character really makes it worth it to watch at whatever pace you may choose. Admittedly I started it because I knew Lucifer is bi (and he is!) and I stayed because everyone (and I mean e v e r y o n e ) is just so beautiful. If you’re bisexual you’re going to drool suffer a lot watching this lmao.

 

By far the highlight of the month was The Dragon Prince which I’ve binge-watched… twice. And I would’ve watched it even more times if it wasn’t that my month has been so busy. If you don’t know about it, it’s by the creators of A:TLA and the first season is on Netflix and they just announced the second season which is coming out in 2019. It has magic, dragons (obviously), adorable children that will have you whip out those adoption papers faster than you can say “dragon big”, amazing and funny dialogues and a lot of diversity. My favorite characters are ALL OF THEM and I particularly have a soft spot for Runaan who is like the exact type of character that’s designed to cater to my feelings personally and there’s also HEAVY suspicions that he is not a heterosexual (nothing heterosexual about a elf assassin if you ask me) but nothing is confirmed yet so don’t take my word for it. Also whether you’ve watched this show or not you must follow the official twitter account because it’s like the best thing to ever happen on twitter (and if you follow it you’ll 100% feel like watching it).

The last thing I (started to) watch is Avatar: The Last Airbender and by now (second week of October) I’m almost done with it and I can say it’s really That good. I’m probably the last person on earth to watch it but I just can’t believe how great it is. I really wish I had watched it when I was a kid because it would have been so formative, but it’s still an amazing experience now as an adult. Also, it uses so many tropes I love and I didn’t even know I loved until now. I’m really glad I was able to sort of binge it this past week (yeah this is a September wrap-up but I can’t pretend I’m not almost over with it).

Hozier (thank you oh mighty king of the forest) | Survive Said the Prophet (they did the first Banana Fish OP so I started listening to them and wow they’re really good) | Arctic Monkeys (someone help me this album is like 98% of all the music I’ve listened to this month and I can’t seem to get sick of it no matter how many times I listen to it) | Panic! (they’re coming to my town in the spring and I got tickets!!) | Bloom (nicely gay)

How was your September? Do you prefer summer or fall? Can you believe we’re less than three months away from the end of the year?