Reader Rayna

Happy birth month to me! Welcome to Leo season, and the height of summer!

Hello, and welcome to my August TBR hopefuls list. Sometimes I question why I make these when they just don’t pan out, but at the same time, I enjoy making these because they’re fun. Anyway, August is my birth month, but also a busy month full of lots of adulting that I’m not looking forward to, as well as events I am looking forward to, and so I want to talk about the books I hope to get to this month as a result of this busy month.

For this month, I’m just choosing all of the books rather than relying on any prompts. I think that will just work out better for me this time around, so here’s my list:

Click on a cover to go to its Goodreads page!

Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas – I’m on my favorite book of the series, finally, and so I’m going to just jump right into it. I want to actually finish this series before ACOTAR 6 comes out, and I believe that I’ll be able to do it, so here’s hoping I actually do lol This’ll be a reread for me.

Empire of Storms and Tower of Dawn by Sarah J. Maas – Okay, hear me out, if I’m feeling ready for it and just ready to keep going, I’m diving straight into the tandem read of these two books. I’ve read Empire of Storms in its entirety before, however, I’ve never read Tower of Dawn, thus I’ve also never read the final book, as well.

I’m hoping that I’ll be able to read all three of those books this month, however, if I don’t, the tandem read will be happening in September.

The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson – I did, in fact, see the Christopher Nolan film, and after sitting on it for a few days I thought it was a good film cinematically, but story-wise, acting-wise, character-wise it was flat in so, so many ways. And way too loud, my god, it really did not need to be as loud as it was. I missed so much dialogue as a result of that. But I had gotten Emily Wilson’s translations of both The Odyssey and The Illiad because as an English major I felt it was something I needed to read at some point in my life.

Well, that point is now.

So I’ll be diving into this epic poem. I might devote a full week or so to it as I know it’s divided into parts before I really try to analyze it for myself and look up more research and topics on the information that this book talks about. This is going to be part of my way of reintroducing academia into my life but on a personal level, as I’ll be starting a personal curriculum journey starting in September. What better way than to start with something like this?

And that’s it! Those are the four books I want to get to in August. They’re ones I’m driven to read right now, so why should I force myself to do otherwise? I’ll talk more about my personal curriculum stuff in another blog post for those interested, but I’ll still post a general review of The Odyssey when I finish. How does one review a story written 2000 years ago? I guess you review the modern translation!

What do you plan on reading in August? Anything you’re particularly looking forward to getting to? Let me know in the comments!