July Recap: The Long Overdue Harry Potter Reread

July was a very quiet month for me, mainly owing to the fact that the bf was away doing field work on the other side of the country, leaving me to spend most of my time on my own. It was thus a bit of a lonely month for me, but it was thankfully made a bit more endurable by my reread of the Harry Potter Series:

This was the first time I've reread the series in its entirety since before I started blogging! In other words, I was WAY overdue for this reread. July seemed like the ideal month to delve back into the series as it is Harry and Jo's birthday month and it coincides with the Harry Potter Month event. I would really love to make this series reread an annual event itself in my reading schedule because I was basically LIVING for HP for significant portions of this month. Of course my love for Harry has never wavered in the time since I last reread the series, but it felt more amazing than I could possibly say to be able to reacquaint myself with this world I adore so much and would die to see for myself, these characters whom I love to the moon and back, and those words that had such an positive impact on my reading habits when I first read them and continue to do so to this very day.

Yes, this reread of the HP series somehow solidified my love for all things Harry Potter even more... and also really brought into sharper focus for me how lacklustre the movie adaptations are in comparison. Of course I've always been of the opinion that the books are superior, but rereading them back to back in conjunction with watching the movies really showed all the many, many failings of the movies in comparison to the books. I won't go into detail on this topic here as that could be a post on its own, but I will just say that in the end I think I could still objectively view the movies in a somewhat positive light... but ultimately they will never even be in the same realm of the boundless love I feel for the books.


In other news, I have been extremely fortunate to have been appointed a job for the fall semester that will involve much more responsibility and many more hours work than any other teaching job I've had at the university thus far. As a result, I'm thinking I will not be around in the blogosphere as much for the month of August as I prepare for this, the highest ranking position I've had in my lifetime (oh, and there's also that 200-page-long thesis that I've been writing and hoping to finish soon...). I'll have to see how it goes!

Blog Posts in July

Drowning In Series
Waiting On Wednesday: HarperCollins Fall 2015 Catalog
Waiting On Wednesday: Hachette Fall 2015 Catalog
Review: Fairest (The Lunar Chronicles #3.5) by Marissa Meyer - 3.5 Stars
Review: Hold Me Closer: The Tiny Cooper Story by David Levithan - 3.5 Stars
Review: Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell - 4 Stars
Series Review: Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead - 3 Stars
My Life in June: Mad Max, Jurassic World, and Serial Podcast

Best Book Read in July

First off, let's just pretend I didn't reread the Harry Potter Series this month. The following was my favourite read of the month OUTSIDE of HP:

This Song Will Save Your Life really resonated with me so deeply that it was both uncomfortable and supremely meaningful. I just really connected with the main character, her life struggles, and her earnest perspective. There were times that the story became so depressing that it was hard to read... but the uplifting ending made the experience totally worth it. Highly recommended.