August Summary and Book Reviews

I'm back! Today I'm going to be combining my normal monthly book review and summary into one post. But don't worry, it won't be too long. Let's get straight to it, shall we?

Book Reviews

To save on time and space, I'm going to simple list one book I loved and one I hated from the last month. Then I'll give a list with all the other books I read with links to my Goodreads reviews.

Best Book

Darkstalker- Tui T. Sutherland

It was super hard to pick just one of my favorite books, because I read a lot of great ones in the past month. But I chose this book because it featured a POV you don't see a lot in children's books. A villain.

The Wings of Fire series is already a great one, but this book topped all of them so far. Darkstalker was an incredibly twisted villain who didn't even see it. All the young dragons in the book were strong characters and the plot was well written. Overall, this book was just amazing and you should read it, and the Wings of Fire series, immediately.

My Rating: 5 stars

Worst Book

The Tell -Tale Start- Gordon McAlpine

This is a book about the descendants of Edgar Allen Poe. It should be good, right? Wrong. The things that most disappointed me about this book were as follows. 1) It was mostly telling. 2) The setting, Baltimore, didn't matter to the story. 3) Not nearly scary enough. 4) The part with Poe in the afterlife was weird. 5) The whole thing was mediocre.

The only good thing about this book were the main characters- Edgar and Allen Poe, identical twins. They were adorable, freaky, and smart. Their aunt and uncle, who they live with, were great too, and the twins cared for them a lot.

My Rating: 2 1/2 stars.

Other Books Read

The Princess and the Pearl- E. D. Baker (3 stars)
Norse Mythology- Neil Gaiman (5 stars)
Disney At Last- Ridley Pearson (5 stars)
The Winner's Kiss- Marie Rutkoski (5 stars)
Braced- Alyson Gerber (5 stars)
The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey- Trenton Lee Stewart (5 stars)
Gabriela- Teresa E. Harris (3 stars)
Gabriela Speaks Out- Teresa E. Harris (3 stars)
The Real Z- Jen Calonita (3 stars)
Hamilton: The Revolution- Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter (4 stars)
A Crown of Wishes- Roshani Chokshi (3 1/2 stars)
The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde- Robert Louis Stevenson (2 1/2 stars)
The Elements of Style- E. B. White and William Strunk Jr. (5 stars)
Nineteen Eighty-Four- George Orwell (3 stars)
Nation- Terry Pratchett (3 1/2 stars)

Summary

As you know, my birthday was last week. I had a great day, including Starbucks and listening to Hamilton (since I was having a Hamilton theme for my birthday). And if you're wondering, twenty doesn't feel much different than nineteen.

There was also the solar eclipse this month. It was amazing. Where I live, we had 80% totality. I want to see the complete totality next time, which I think is in 2019 or something.

In writing news, I finished the first draft of Return to Wonderland! It came out at a little over 70K words, which is my longest novel to date. I also wrote my first short story, which was a Doctor Who fanfic. I'm working on editing it now. Now I'm trying to pick what I want to do for NaNoWriMo.

In September, I want to get back into more of a routine. I'm going to start NaNoWriMo prep and work on some more editing. I don't have any super big plans, which is okay with me.

I'll also have an extra post for you tomorrow, or Wednesday, depending on my schedule. Come back to see what it is. (Hint: It's about someplace I went in the past few days.)

Let's talk! What did you do in August? What did you read in the past month? Do you like Hamilton? Tell me in the comments.