August Wrap-Up

Hello Friends,

This is the first time I’m doing a monthly wrap-up & it would be a lie to say I didn’t feel at least a little bit giddy writing it. Here’s a little wrap-up of what happened in my life life/book/blog-wise. Hope you’ll enjoy my little collage of moments!

My life in blogs

1. I finally revamped my blog! Not only am I back with a new blog design (which was LONG overdue), I also don’t think I have ever been so committed to book blogging. I’m currently trying to post at least once a week but it’s so fascinating for me to see how my writing has evolved over time, that and my approaches to blogging overall. I love getting bolder, being more confident about my own writing and my own heritage & just putting all the words together I want to speak.

2. Speaking about becoming more confident and bolder — my favourite posts that I wrote this month are on book piracy and ownvoices. Do you know this feeling of writing a blog post and you just can’t believe you came up with all the sentences? It still feels so surreal. I feel so proud that I managed to write these two posts. All words in the posts are mine. People are reading my words!

3. My favourite posts of this month — so many! Here are only some of my personal highlights:
– Book Blogging vs. Booktoking Aka “Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?” by Emily (if you know about the tea, you know)
– Sofia shares 170 Book Recommendations for Latinx Book Bingo/Latinx Heritage Month
– Here’s a post that Jamilex made on how to read books without having your bank account instantly wiped out
– #ownvoices but as a biracial? Here’s an incredibly well-written post that Kay did
– Here’s a post that Meg made where she talks about adults reviewing YA books

My life in books

Generally there were so many new firsts for me this month! Now that I’ve had more time to sit down and read (because I’m currently on semester break), I have also ventured out to trying new reading formats which is so much fun! Also because I like to look at numbers, I created a little stats sheet

1. I managed to read a total of 11 books this month which is seven more than I normally read every month! This is the best reading month I’ve probably had so far and it brought so many amazing reads into my life!

– The Air You Breathe — 91%
– More Than Just a Pretty Face — 89%
– Dominicana — 81%
– The Legend of Korra, Turf Wars, Part 1 — 80%
– Clap When You Land — 76%
– The Avant-Guards, Vol. 1 — 71%
– The Inheritance Games — 70%
– How To Lose a Time War — 69%
– You Should See Me in a Crown — 67%
– A Girl Made of Air — 52%
– Dating Makes Perfect — 51%

I am especially surprised that I ended up with so many queer reads this month! There was queer representation in more than half of the books I read & I can’t wait to continue this tradition next month.

2. I participated in one of my first serious readathons in my life (which still sounds unreal to me because I normally S U C K at keeping up with them, as I usually drop out after the first 50 pages of the first book I set out to read) which was the LatinxReadathon on Twitter. I managed to read 3 books for this readathon which is amazing for me since that makes up 75% of all the books I normally read in a month (lol).
In addition, it gave me my reading highlight of this month (and probably of this year so far) which is The Air You Breathe by Frances de Pontes Peebles. It has hands down become one of my favourite books of all-time and I still can’t stop thinking about the richness and wholeness of the story. Btw, I’m continuing my Latinx read ride next month with Latinx Heritage Month just around the corner. There are so many fun challenges in September such as the Latinx Book Bingo in which I will participate too!

• 

3. Another favourite book that I discovered this month is More Than Just a Pretty Face by Syed M. Masood. It’s a sweet YA contemporary with an Pakistani-American main character who ends up falling for a girl who is very unlike his ’normal type’. This book touches on a lot of important topics such as identity as a second-generation desi Muslim or even colonialism. I laughed so much reading this book, this book is a force of energy!

4. I read two short comics (The Legend of Korra – Turf Wars, Part 1 & The Avant-Guards Vol. 1) this month, which is one of the new formats I was talking about earlier, and I’m really enjoying it! I never read comics or graphic novels growing up because my Asian parents never believed in their educational purposes so I’m basically living my childhood dreams right now.

5. I also read two audiobooks: You Should See Me In a Crown & How To Lose a Time War. This a totally new experience for me too because I want to integrate audiobooks into my reading life. Before, I only listened to audiobooks perhaps every 2 years (and that’s a realistic guess) but I have become so inspired by my blogger friends to give it a shot too!

My life in personal stories

1. As you might know, I’m a medical student and I’m always looking for possible career pathways because I honestly don’t know in which field I want to specialise later. I randomly sent out an application for a surgical placement for 1 month at my local hospital and I started rotating at the vascular surgical department soon after. I had no idea what vascular surgery is all about (spoiler alert: it’s about re-opening and re-canalising blocked bloodstreams and removing dead tissue) and I honestly only picked it because it sounded like the least boring surgical field that was offered there — but I love it so much now! I love watching and assisting in endarterectomies or carotid artery stenosis operations and I have even learned to stand for 4 hours straight without breaking a sweat (okay that last bit was a lie, lower back pain is real you guys).
Something that I’ve learned is: don’t smoke. Okay this sentence is full of irony of course but it’s really shocking to see that smoking is one of the main reasons patients end up with artery diseases (with many patients even refusing to stop smoking, even if they are now undergoing surgery because of it). Anyways, guess who just extended her placement contract for another month? This girl! (I think I may or may not end up becoming a surgeon :))

2. I participated in one of my first serious readathons in my life (which still sounds unreal to me because I normally S U C K at keeping up with them, as I usually drop out after the first 50 pages of the first book I set out to read) which was the LatinxReadathon on Twitter. I managed to read 3 books for this readathon which is amazing for me since that makes up 75% of all the books I normally read in a month (lol).
In addition, it gave me my reading highlight of this month (and probably of this year so far) which is The Air You Breathe by Frances de Pontes Peebles. It has hands down become one of my favourite books of all-time and I still can’t stop thinking about the richness and wholeness of the story. Btw, I’m continuing my Latinx read ride next month with Latinx Heritage Month just around the corner. There are so many fun challenges in September such as the Latinx Book Bingo in which I will participate too!

Anyways, that’s it for August. Did you have any reading highlights?

_{^{xoxo, Tessi}}

• life happens
• wrap up