Ahh, summertime is one of my most favorite reading times of the year and I have SO MANY phenomenal books in store this season! I read some really incredible books in June and I want to say a massive thank you to the folks who offered up recommendations. I posted on Twitter a while ago asking for books to add to my Pride Month reading list and some of my absolute favorites of the month (like Homebody and Refusing Compulsory Sexuality) were recommendations from that. I didn’t get to all of the books recommended, but I did add tons to my TBR.

I’ll be spending a long weekend in July at the beach with some pals and although I know I will be very busy swimming, making yummy food, and hanging out with my friends, I also know I’ll get to spend a bit of time with a book on the beach. Absolutely one of the best places to read.

Anyways, enough babbling, here are the books! Thanks for reading with me y’all!

June Reads

June Numbers

📖 read: 1,499 pages
🎧 listened: 0 minutes
🖼️ observed: 224 pages of graphic novels

July TBR

Petal Pages Summer Book Bingo

Join the Petal Pages stream team for a summer full of reading! We’ve got two bingo boards and $300 worth of prizes to give out to participants at the end of the month! I’ll be aiming to do as much of the bingo boards as possible and we’ve got a special place in the community Discord for trading book recommendations and setting up buddy reads (for fun but also to help with book bingo)!

Click the link above to get full details on the book bingo event and download the bingo boards. Happy reading!

Bella’s Queer Book Recs

In June I participated in a reading raid train and shared a MASSIVE list of queer book recommendations with y’all live on stream and ever since then I’ve been promising to share the list. Well… I’m late, but it’s finally here! Mostly! You can click the title of this section (or this next part) to link to my ever-growing Notion site of queer book recommendations! At the time I’m sharing this post the site does not have 100% of the books I originally recommended, but keep an eye out because I’ll keep adding them to the database over in Notion! The site will allow you to filter by genre, queer identities represented, if I’ve read the book, and more! Enjoy, and please let me know if you add any new books to your TBRs!

Books with Pals Schedule

Books with Pals is on break for July so that Bella can rest and spend some time at the beach! Check in soon for next month’s guest, Lili @tulilipz!

Saint Martin’s Press (SMP) Boycott

Social media influencers who create book content are currently boycotting Saint Martins Press (SMP) in response to their lack of accountability after an employer made harmful zionist, islamophobic, and racist statements. Please read more about this boycott from the Readers for Accountability carrd. I encourage fellow book-focused influencers to join me in boycotting SMP!

More Book Stuff

You can watch the VOD of the December Books with Bella stream and keep an eye out for future streams on my Twitch channel. If you miss a Books with Bella stream you can catch up on all of them in this YouTube playlist. I also post regularly on my book-focused Instagram.

Great places to get books:

  • Audiobooks: Libro.FM (use my referral code: lfm461686)
  • Free books: use the Libby app to get audiobooks and ebooks for free with your library card
  • Public domain books: use the Project Gutenberg website to view ebooks and digital copies of books in the public domain
  • Digital ARC books for reviewers: NetGalley