Happy end of August! Personally, I'm ready to say goodbye to the summer heat. Hopefully, September brings cooler weather and great fall reads. Keep reading, or kip down, to the end for a big September announcement. For now, it's time to recap my library reading habits for August. After a couple of really busy library months in June and July, I slowed things down. Except, I did a decent amount of reading this month. I've been trying to finish more of the books that have been sitting on my Goodreads "currently reading" shelf. I think this month's reading helped a little.

READ

A Race Against Time (Nancy Drew: Girl Detective #2) by Carolyn Keene - Nancy Drew (of the early 2000s) is back again in her second mystery. The early books of this series featured a combination of familiar characters from the original books and new characters, many of them recurring, but you don't have to read the books in order. In her second story Nancy and her friends are riding in a charity bike tournament, even before the race beginnings, Ned goes missing, and other strange accidents befall their bike race team. When the prize money goes missing Nancy races against time, to recover it before it rides off to never be seen again. Nancy solved much of this by being at the right place at the right time, but it was fun nostalgic reread. ★★★★☆ CONTENT WARNINGS: Mild language, mild violence appropriate for 8+, quick kisses and hugs. Listened to on Hoopla
Spy X Family, Volume 14 by Tatuya Endo - Volume 14 is a cozy and sweet story as Anya goes to her first dance, trying to further her Friendship Plan B. She tries to get second son, Damion to dance with her, what is really adorable is neither one is even sure if they really want to dance with each other. In the second half we see a story of love during wartime story, that I didn't know I needed until I was obsessed with their journey. Becky's governess and Professor Henderson had their own fling in their youth. It was both sweet and heartbreaking. ★★★★★ Read on Libby CONTENT WARNINGS: Language and violence pictured on the page.
Love Unmasked by Becky Dean - This was my second Becky Dean book, and now I definitely have to read more of her books. On a class trip in Venice, Evie sneaks out to find a cosplay fan meetup for her favorite book series. In costume, she feels freer to be herself, and when she meets Angelo, another fan visiting Venice, she feels truly seen for the first time since her dad's death. She looks forward to each night as she spends her days exploring Vencie with her classmates, especially since she is paired with the broody loner, Gabriel. Her poor choices are not glossed over, but they also didn't leave me dreading the consequences. This is a laugh out loud clean romance, acceptable for teen readers, but perfect for anyone. ★★★★★ Read on Libby CONTENT WARNINGS: Mild language, teens sneaking out, embraces and kissing. IG Review
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, narrated by Charlie Thurston - Based on David Copperfield, this is a retelling that details the tragedies of kids in foster care in the 1990s from the perspective of a young man looking back as his trouble youth. It's full of hopes and dreams of a better life but told like the memoir of a cynical young man, who has realized all he could ever control was his actions. This is a heavy read and I cried many times, especially when the book depicted the story of an unloved little boy. It's not my usual read, and although it was very long, it wasn't boring. I had to take it slow. Check the content warnings on this book since it is very heavy. ★★★★☆ CONTENT WARNINGS: Drugs, addiction, underage drinking, descriptions of child abuse, kissing, mentions s*x with only descriptions of the emotions only, violence major character death, mental illness including mentions of s*icide, strong adult language throughout, LGBTQ+ characters. Listened to on Hoopla. 12 Recs from 12 Friends 2026
The Full Picture by Jessica Charmichael, narrated by Ana Hoffman - During the holidays, Canadian college student Robyn takes a trip to meet her late mother's family in Ghana for her grandmother's birthday party. While in Ghana she meets Osei a free-spirited neighbor of her grandmother, who shares her interest in photography and Kelvin who is also a Canadian pharmacy student. As she's connecting with parts of her mother she never knew, she also discovers herself. I learned I'm not a fan of love triangles, although this one was amusing, Mostly I couldn't really get into this one because it's a Christmas holiday story and it was July when I started listening to it. Mostly it was a fun no spice romance. ★★★☆☆ CONTENT WARNINGS: Kissing, occasional adult language, and adults drinking, LGBTQ+ Characters. Listened to on Hoopla. 12 Recs from 12 Friends 2026

Currently Reading

Climbing Rejection Mountain: An Actor's Path to Success, Stability, and Self-Esteem by Nick Wyman, Michael X. Martin
Batman: Resurrection by John Jackson Miller
Adversary to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer
Joined at the Joints by Marissa Eller
A Study in Charlette by Brittany Cavallaro

Checked Out, To Be Read

The Last Ronin: A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Novel by Erik Burnham
Climbing Rejection Mountain: An Actor's Path to Success, Stability, and Self-Esteem by Nick Wyman, Michael X. Martin IG reel
Perfect World, Vol. 8 by Rie Aruga
Stargirl. The complete third season. (DVD)
The Someday Garden by Ashley Poston
White Widow: Secret Sisters by Tess Sharpe

In The Reservation Queue

Star Wars: Eyes Like Stars by Ashley Poston
Autopsy of a Fairytale by Nicole Scarano

On Hold, To Be Picked Up

None at this time.

Returned Unread

How to Survive a Horror Movies by Scarlett Dunmore - I used this for a pervious October Mystery and Thrillers. I wanted to read it, because it is about a horror movie fan. It hasn't been a priority read, so I had to return it before I could read it.
Unofficial Taylor Swift Friendship Bracelets: 33 bead designs through the eras. - Since I make friendship bracelets, I saw this book and thought it would be fun to flip through. The author did a cute job pairing song lyrics with colors that matched the album covers.
Four Days a Week: The life changing solution for reducing employee stress, improving well-being and working smarter by Juliet Schor - I saw this when I was having a lot of stress at work, I was curious what it says, but since I don't set my hours at work, I would be reading it purely for the concept. It wasn't a priority.
All for the Game by Heather Buchta - I've read another one of her books Chasing After Knight and loved it, I thought reading a mystery by her would be fun, but I ran out of time before I had to return it.

In August I finished five books. I returned four books unread and only checked out six books. I feel like that was pretty well self-controlled of me. However, I wasn't praying much attention to my account. Because of that, I have three books that are overdue. I'm grateful that my local library system got rid of daily late fees back in 2019. The unfortunate thing is that I used to be really on top of getting items returned on time, now, I basically just wait until they are overdue to take them back. It's a problem.

On Instagram, I have been writing reviews again. This month, I have written three, which might be a record for my recent review writing. My most recent review was for a book I finished a couple of months, but it is about to get a lot attention because of the upcoming movie. My most recent review is for Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins.

I have several pieces of writing in the work. The Fan Fiction is still in works, but it I don't have a plan for when I will complete it. What I'm putting most of my writing effort toward is the Five Fall Favourites (Favorites) 2026. I announced it last week on Instagram, and now I'm sharing here. It will be back again for another year of stress-blogging. I've been trying to work on prep a little every day, so hopefully, I'll do less late-night stress-blogging this year. Step 1 for me is to pick my favorites books to share. I try to keep my repeats to a minimum. After doing it for two years, it is getting harder. I think a lot of these favorites will be recent reads. What you won't find of this year's list are my top 5 favorite books of 2025, but you can already read those here. Thanks for reading this month's Love Your Library and I hope to see you back on September 21 for Five Fall Favourites 2026.

#LoveYourLibrary

Thank you, Rebecca for coming up with this blog challenge that encourages me to read and write every month. Check out her blog, Bookish Beck.

I love making Bookish Friends! Follow me on Instagram Skai_BooksAndBracelets.

Stay up to date on all reading and reviews by following on Goodreads.

Inspirational Skai

Monday, August 31, 2026