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July 2017 Reflection



Now that July is over, it's time for our monthly reflection! July was both a good and bad month for Reading is Inevitable, when considering both the blog and bookstagram. If you are unfamiliar with my monthly reflections, then you can read my explanation below and/or check out the monthly reflections tag.

Basically, these monthly reflections are a way for me to reflect on what we have and have not accomplished for the past month in terms of Reading is Inevitable. I also begin planning for the month ahead, including writing new goals for myself based on what I would like to accomplish. They're a great way for me to continue growing and improving Reading is Inevitable.

Looking Back Into July

The Blog

Unlike last month, where I saw an increase in traffic to the blog (down by 45% because I didn't post much -- oh my!), pageviews actually increased. I'm happy to see that they're improving, having increased by about 77%! (Yay!) I also managed to post every Monday and Friday of July, with the exception of the 14th and 17th of July.

This Month's Posts:
"Navigating Bookstagram - Stories & Tips From a Small(er?) Account - Monthly Challenges"
"June 2017 Reflection"
"Summer 2017 Challenge - Reading Popular YA Books"
"Reading a Letter From 2016 Me"
"2017 Reading Goals Update"
All the Books I Own But Have Not Read (Part 1)
"Navigating Bookstagram - Stories & Tips From a Small(er?) Account - Inactivity"

Bookstagram

As explained in July's last post, a Navigating Bookstagram post titled "Inactivity", we have been inactive on our Instagram page for most of July. As a result, we lost 18 followers and only posted twice

Goals

Fun fact: when writing this post, I almost completely forgot about my goals. I just moved on to August before looking back at June's monthly reflection and remembering that, oh, I make goals each month! (I have no idea what my July goals were...)


  1. Unfortunately, I did not post every Monday and Friday of the month. I did come close, however. I only missed a week of posting (so one Monday and one Friday, or two posts). This is an improvement for me and I hope that I can start to finally keep on track with the blog. 
  2. Whoops. That didn't happen at all. I already mentioned how we didn't post at all on bookstagram. I think it's partially because we were going to try out a new sort of look, but found out that we're not very good at doing that particular look. However, I did figure out a new editing style that I hope to use in August.
  3. We weren't very creative, as we didn't post, but we are taking steps towards being creative. As I think I've talked about in the past, Em and I would like to be more creative with our pictures. I suppose you can see that in the second picture we posted in July, in which some staging had to be thought of. I also started drawing out ideas for picture layouts.

Coming Up in August

The Blog

So far, I only have one post scheduled for August (the part 2 to July's "All the Books I Own But Have Not Read (Part 1)"), but I do have some post ideas that I've been thinking over for some time now. I also think that I'll continue posting twice a week in August, but after that, I might switch over to only Monday posts with the exception of Friday monthly reflections.

Bookstagram

I really hope to start posting again in August. While we don't have many new pictures to share with our followers, I do have some old pictures that we've shared that I have edited to fit our new "theme", of sorts. So I hope that I can trust myself in saying that there will be some posts in August.

Goals




  1. Figure out what to do with blog graphics. Recently, as you may or may not have noticed, I've changed up the way I make my title pictures for each post. While I've started to get a thing going, I'm not quite so sure if I want to stick with this theme or how to shake it up a bit without making each picture too different from the others.
  2. Post regularly on bookstagram. This was a goal of mine from last month, but, since I did not complete this goal, I'm going to try to accomplish it this month.
  3. Post some more book reviews on the blog. I realized that I haven't been posting as many book reviews on the blog in recent times. In fact, the last review on the blog was Emily's from April, and the last one I wrote was published in November! So I think it's about time that I get some more book reviews up. After all, it's not like I stopped reading since then!



That's all for this monthly reflection. Hopefully August will be better, both for the blog (which was fine in July) and the bookstagram (which suffered). And maybe this time I'll actually try to remember my goals. 😉


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This Month's Popular Posts

Quotes: Audacity

As some of you may know by looking at my posts on our social media page (@readingisinevitable on Instagram), I am currently reading Audacity by Melanie Crowder. It is a beautiful book written in free verse, and follows the life of Clara Lemlich, a female Jewish immigrant who came to America in the early 1900s. (For the full summary of the book, click here .) I absolutely love books written in free verse, or any type of poetry, in fact! This book is so lovely that I have decided to dedicate a whole post to some of my favorite quotes or parts! (Note: I am only on page 294, and there are 366 pages, not including the extra content at the end of my local library's copy.)

Book Review: This is Where it Ends

Title: This is Where it Ends Author: Marieke Nijkamp Rating: 4.15 out of 5 Genre:  YA Realistic Fiction Reviewer: Em "Everyone has a reason to fear the boy with the gun." This book is incredibly interesting. After you read the title and the inside cover, you already want to sit down and read it all they way through. Why else would I read it for five hours on a weekday, and then read another hour the next day to finish it? This story is told from four different perspectives, and the story happens over fifty-four minutes. It is about four seniors starting a new semester when a familiar face becomes a school shooter.

Welcome

Welcome to Reading is Inevitable! This blog is run by two teens--Em and Julia--and will mainly be about books, but will also include posts about art, games, and whatever else comes up in our lives! Our first actual post will be posting tomorrow (it will be a book review!) and we would love for you all to check it out! We also have an Instagram page ( @readingisinevitable ) and an e-mail address ( readingisinevitable@gmail.com ), so if you wish to contact us, please do so through one of those or through the comments section. Now, we could just leave it at that, but we think that it would be nice for you to get to know us a bit more first!

2017 Reading Goals

So, since 2017 is officially here (and has been for about two weeks), I figured I might as well post about our reading goals for the year! I'll also attempt figuring out all of the books I read in 2016, but I know it'll be far from accurate as I did not write it down and I know I won't remember everything! For 2016, I actually didn't make any reading goals. I just wanted to finish one book a month, I guess! I can happily say that I did complete this very small goal of mine. (Some people aim for 100 books a year!)