July Highlights // 2k followers! + fav blog posts

Hey everyone!

I generally don’t do monthly highlights or wrap-ups. Wrap-ups used to be my thing for a while but I stopped doing them about 2 years ago because I simply didn’t feel like doing them anymore. But this month I really felt like bringing it back and even did advance prep for it!

Will this become a regular feature on the blog? I don’t know. It depends on if I feel like doing it every month. But for now, I’m excited to share some things. Let’s get to it!

Reading Updates

I read 14 books in July!!!! If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen that I posted yesterday saying I read 13 books. But I had missed one book.

The Boyfriend Project by Farrah Rochon was the only 5 star book but I also did really like Seeing Like A Feminist by Niveditha Menon (review to come.. sometime) and The Marriage Game by Sara Desai as well.

If you want to know more about my 2020 reads, you can checkout this spreadsheet where I track my reading, mark tags related to the book, and write small notes about the books.

Blogging Highlights

I reached 2k followers last month!!!! I want to do a Q&A soon to celebrate. If you have any questions that you’d like me to answer, please fill this form!

I also changed the blog’s theme and I’m REALLY LOVING IT. It looks so good. It’ll definitely take a while for me to get used to because I had the old theme for a very long time but it’s a good change.

Top posts (that went up in July):

I’m really surprised (& pleased!!!) that this post was the most popular one because 1. it went up quite late in the month and 2. I simply did not expect this to get as much traction.

But once it went up, it got a ton of views and comments. I am happy about the comments but it’s also sad that so many bloggers related to what I said in the post. The post was also shared several times on Twitter, which was awesome!

The other top post was the folklore book tag!! This was very fun to do and I’m glad about how it turned out. Really happy about this one. If you haven’t heard the folklore album yet, GO LISTEN TO IT RIGHT NOW.

Blogosphere highlights

This section is where I’ll be sharing some posts & other things by other bloggers that I enjoyed this month!

• I followed Ruby Rae Reads recently and I LOVE HER BLOG.
• Noura is hosting a wonderful Diversify That Shelf readathon in August.
• There’s now a super cool website that lists 900+ Sapphic Reads in one place.
• Marie wrote a wonderful post on Why and how you should support more book bloggers.
• May also wrote a similar where she shares 5 Reasons Why She Loves Book Blogs & 7 Ways to Support Us.
• Anika shared 6 things she wishes friends knew about blogging and this is SO RELATABLE.
• Krisha shared a list of Diverse Books set in non-Western countries.

I want to keep this section short but choosing what to share is a STRUGGLE.

Any Other Highlights

This section is for sharing anything from other platforms (IG, Twitter, YT) or whatever else on the internet.

• I’ve been enjoying Booktube videos lately! I’m still not that into them but I do watch a few videos here and there. Booktubers I recently followed: fictionalfates, Mina Reads, Pretty Little Bibliophile.
• I started a new theme on my Instagram account and I’m quite liking it!

• Uma is hosting a really cool giveaway/initiative called #LetsReadOwnVoices on Instagram.
• The Indian Lit Readathon occurred last week. I was not able to participate in it but its a good one if you’re interested in participating in the future.
• There’s a readathon on IG focused on India & Pakistan partition writings since we have our Independence days this month.
• Kajree is hosting a Diverse Reads Readathon on Instagram this month.
• YouTube is discontinuing “Community Contributions” which allowed others to caption videos. This decision is not right. Sign this petition against it.
• While I didn’t participate, Reading Rush was a mess this year so here’s a thread of readathons & book clubs with POC hosts.

I can already tell this section will always be a struggle as well. Way too many things happen in the span of a month.

July Goals

I don’t really keep specific goals each month but I do vaguely have a couple things in mind that I’d like to do. If this post series goes on regularly, I can probably make monthly goals a habit.

When July began, I had the following goals in mind:

• Finish!! reading Room by Emma Donoghue. ✅ I finally stopped procrastinating and read it last weekend.
• Buddy read Seeing Like a Feminist by Niveditha Menon with Pinki @ books & art journal ✅ This book was really good!
• Finish 3 prompts for 2020 Popsugar Reading Challenge ❌ I did two.
• Work harder on @bujobeauties account ✅❌ I did do better but not as much as I would have liked.

August Goals

• Do/plan an extra event for @bujobeauties.
• Make a spreadsheet for the Kdramas that I’ve seen. Until now I’ve been keeping track on a notes app but a spreadsheet will be better.
• Finish 3 prompts for 2020 Popsugar Reading Challenge.
• Buddy read Coming Out as a Dalit by Yashica Dutt with Pinki @ books & art journal.

This post was supposed to be short but I had a ton of stuff to share, apparently. I’m actually already looking forward to doing this next month!

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How was your July? Have you heard the folklore album yet? Are you participating in any challenges this month? Also, what do you think of this blog’s new theme?