July Reflections: Books Read, Reading Realizations, & July Loves
Bonus! I doubled down on the links:)
I’m excited to chat a bit about some of the reading realizations I came to in July. It was as if a lightbulb came on in my head when I realized that just because everyone everywhere seems to be loving this book, that doesn’t mean I was; therefore, it’s OKAY to let it go. I say this because I tried twice to listen to it, got to 11%, and realized my initial intuitive feeling of not feeling the story, the characters, or the structure was continuing. I proceeded to argue with myself….everyone seems to be loving this book, maybe you’re missing something, maybe you need to give it 20% or 40% AND THEN you’ll be in it and things will turn around. I even put a question in my Instagram stories asking people about it- I got very interesting responses from many people who actually felt the same way and had stopped reading the book. And then I realized, I really wanted to like this book….but I didn’t, so I set it aside and moved on. And I have no regrets about that.
The bigger question for me was, why did I doubt my reading intuition which has served me so well for so long? I think part of the reason is my immersion in the book community (which I love), and the many reviews and opinions I take in on any given day. When other people’s voices start to override my own, I know I need to take a step back and realign with my own reading taste again. I need to adjust my reading filter so to speak because I love being immersed in the book community, I love chatting about books, I look forward to my Friday Threads post every week because I want to find out what others are reading and enjoying. But if I have my reading filters properly adjusted, I can hear about books, maybe add them to my tbr (or not), but not get stuck in the weeds of forcing myself to read a book because everyone is loving it and I want to love it too. That’s not to say that I never end up loving a book that tons of others do too - my top book of July is a great example of that, and also this spring read.
But I realized that what brings me a lot of joy when it comes to reading and recommending books to others is being able to shout about a 5 star new release that’s not getting a lot of attention (Leaving by Roxana Robinson back in Feb) or a backlist book that I’d missed years ago that becomes a top read of the year (Erasure by Percival Everett). So, as you can see, I’ve REALLY been reflecting in July and I’m looking forward to resetting my reading filters and seeing what under the radar gems come my way in August!
