So some of you may know that I’m a fan of reading challenges if only because they help encourage me to make more headway on my monster To-Be-Read pile that is easily a mountain now (though the reading gods knows I got super derailed on my #BeatTheBacklist challenge this year – I’ve read a fair number of books so far this year and am ahead of my Goodreads goal … said books are just not the ones I original put on my list LOL). One of my faves from last year that I thought I had blogged about but apparently didn’t was #ARCAugust. One of the bonuses of being involved in the writing community and keeping active there is that I occasionally luck into being offered physical Advanced Reader Copies (or ARCs) of upcoming releases. I am… not the best at reading them prior to the release date unfortunately, but at least when I do finally get to them, I make sure to review them whether it’s here or on Goodreads and always make sure to cross post over to commercial sites as well. (Seriously, always cross post your Goodreads reviews, y’all – it takes very little time, but can be a huge help for bring more readers to books you loved!)
But I digress. I am not here to talk about responsible reviewing of books, but of my attempt to be responsible with READING books… on time, that is. And that’s where #ARCAugust comes in for me: it’s the one time of year that I ignore the rest of the monster pile of unread books now taking over an entire bookcase instead of just a shelf, and focus solely on trying to knock out some of the ARCs I have yet to read. This year I’m being rather ambitious considering what my reading speed has been the rest of the year, but it still just this side of possible if I really focus.
Drum roll please! My #ARCAugust TBR books for this round are:
For once I actually do have an order of priority instead of just grabbing at random or tossing the titles into a list generator. The top three in the picture all have upcoming release dates in August and September, so I really want to get them read before they come out if at all possible. That puts THE DOWNSTAIRS GIRL up first, followed by SONG OF THE ABYSS and SERPENT & DOVE respectively.
The other four are all past their release dates (in some cases WELL past unfortunately as they got buried in the TBR), so I am not quite as determined to finish them in August for sure (though I do definitely want to read them sooner rather than later). KINGDOM OF THE BLAZING PHOENIX is probably my top priority of those. I started reading it over a year ago and then a friend moved it while pet sitting at my place and I only recently found it again. I LOVED FOREST OF A THOUSAND LANTERNS and was super excited for the companion novel; I just couldn’t figure out where it disappeared to LOL. The other three ARCs all sound awesome as well. Hopefully I'll manage to get to all of them in August, but if not, I will probably extend the challenge for myself into September!
So yeah, seven books in a month is the goal thus far. Tough, but doable probably. Though, I just found out I have at least one other ARC coming thanks to a Goodreads giveaway, so I may end up with even more books on my list. Wish me luck!
Are any of y’all taking the #ARCAugust challenge?
You can sign up and get the details here: http://readsleeprepeat.org/2019/07/06/announcing-arc-august-2019/ or over on Twitter at the #ARCAugust hashtag. Let me know if you are and share your TBR list!
Edit 8/04/19 So as of yesterday, my TBR is officially even more challenging (though I did binge read through one of the new books last night bc I have no self control LOL). As you can see below, there are some awesome books on my list, though most have already technically been released. This makes 10 books total (since I read SONG OF THE ABYSS before August technically started). So far I've finished A TREASON OF THORNS and hope to finish THE DOWNSTAIRS GIRL this evening. How are all of you doing if you've joined in the challenge??
Edit 8/16/19 So just an FYI I got YET ANOTHER ARC this past week - WHERE DREAMS DESCEND... bc of course I did LOL So that brings my total ARCs in my possession to 11 total so... this could be interesting, especially as I've only finish 3 so far as of the 16th which is not idea to say the least.
In other news, I have also just found the 2019 #ARCAugust Bingo card which I of course will be doing even though it is unlikely that I will win as I have limited ARCs and the squares they can fill (which I'll only be doing 1 square per book) are all over the place. At the very least it will be a fun way to track how I'm doing. As it currently stands, my completed squares are:
1) A TREASON OF THORNS - "Finish 1 Author I've Read Before"
2) THE DOWNSTAIRS GIRL - "Finish 1 New To You Author"
3) SERPENT & DOVE - "Friends to Lovers OR Enemies to Lovers Story"
My next read is going to be UNEARTHED which could fill a couple squares so we'll see if I can plot out where best to put it LOL