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Personally, I am relieved July is over.

Another month has come and gone and I’m really enjoying taking a moment to reflect on the previous month while also gearing up for the month ahead.

July was a really rough month, I had a short list of books I planned to read but despite my best intentions, I only managed to read one book.

That was, “Daisy Jones & The Six” by Taylor Jenkins Reid. (Which I recommend reading if you’ve been thinking about reading this one + review here.)

At first, I felt really let down, but then I remembered that I really struggled with my mental health and had more social events to attend than usual. During a good month, I won’t be busy, I’ll have less than two social obligations, and will spend many hours snuggled up with my boyfriend and cat.

Which is why I am really looking forward to slowing down again in August. August’s reading list is a bit recycled and features nearly the same books as July. For August, I’d like to read:

1. “Betty” by Tiffany McDaniel

“Born in a bathtub in 1954 to a Cherokee father and white mother, Betty is the sixth of eight siblings. The world they inhabit is one of poverty and violence — both from outside the family and also, devastatingly, from within. When her family’s darkest secrets are brought to light, Betty has no choice but to reckon with the brutal history hiding in the hills, as well as the heart-wrenching cruelties and incredible characters she encounters in her rural town of Breathed, Ohio.”

Blurb from Waterstones website

*Please also note that I have been told this book heavily discusses a traumatic scene involving disturbing violence towards an animal, I am sensitive to that and if you are too and want to read this book, skip Chapter 26.*

2. “Before the coffee gets cold” by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

“In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.

In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer’s, see their sister one last time, and meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.

But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .”

Blurb from Pan Macmillan website

3. “Rebecca” by Daphne Du Maurier

“The novel begins in Monte Carlo, where our heroine is swept off her feet by the dashing widower Maxim de Winter and his sudden proposal of marriage. Orphaned and working as a lady’s maid, she can barely believe her luck. It is only when they arrive at his massive country estate that she realizes how large a shadow his late wife will cast over their lives — presenting her with a lingering evil that threatens to destroy their marriage from beyond the grave.”

Blurb from Goodreads

*I watched the movie version of this book on Netflix and really disliked it. I felt like a lot was missing and the ending felt cut short, so I am determined to uncover if the book is better than the film adaptation.*

4. “The Secret History” by Donna Tartt

“Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality they slip gradually from obsession to corruption and betrayal, and at last — inexorably — into evil.”

Blurb from Goodreads

For now, I am going to leave myself with four books I hope to read in August. I think I read so much in June, that I didn’t fully look ahead and took on a bit more than I could handle for July.

And since August will be a bit of a slower month, I am looking forward to some much-needed R&R from the madness that was July. As well as get back on track with my small business goals and mental health.

That being said, if you’ve read any of the books on this month’s TBR list, please let me know your thoughts!