Every year, Cathy from 746 Books hosts the 20 Books of Summer Challenge. It’s a good opportunity to challenge my reading during the summer and to hopefully get to some books I might not have read otherwise. This year, I didn’t meet my goal of 15 but I did read 13 books from my list:
- Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi
- The Choice by Edith Eva Eger
- Aloha Vietnam by Elizabeth Nguyen
- And Then He Sang a Lullaby by Ani Kayode
- Dreams of Arcadia by Brian Porter
- The Deep Sky by Yumi Kitasei
- Killing Me by Michelle Gagnon
- The House is On Fire by Rachel Beanland
- What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo
- Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley
- The Monsters We Defy by Leslye Penelope
- The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery
- Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo
I’m very glad I read The Choice and What My Bones Know; I learned a lot from both authors who lived through some terrible ordeals. I also loved Warrior Girl Unearthed and The House is on Fire and I enjoyed nearly all of the others. I read two books for the TBR Pile Challenge and two for the Reading Nonfiction Challenge. The one disappointment was Family Lore, and that’s because I’ve loved Acevedo’s other books so much (this one might have been better on audio but I had a digital copy).
Here’s what I read that wasn’t on my list:
- The Lost Wife by Susanna Moore
- Sorry, Bro by Taleen Voskuni
- It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey
- Wool by Hugh Howey (audio)
- The World Record Book of Racist Stories by Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar (audio)
- Foster by Claire Keegan (audio)
- How to Walk Away by Katherine Center
- The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep by H.G. Parry (audio)
- The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling (audio)
I did enjoy many of the non-list books I read, like Wool, Foster, The World Record Book of Racist Stories, and especially The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep. And I do like to mix in some lighter reads — I loved How to Walk Away (Katherine Center is my new favorite romance writer, in addition to Kate Clayborn). Sorry, Bro and It Happened One Summer were also fun reads (I wasn’t crazy about The Ex Hex).
I have quite a few ARCs to read this fall. I’m reading new releases by Karen Lord, Angie Kim, and Paulette Jiles. I haven’t been reviewing much lately; between travel and selling my dad’s condo, I’ve mostly focused on reviewing ARCs. But I’d like to get back to reviewing more. I also want to do a review of my reading from Jenny Lawson’s Fantastic Strangelings book club.
I’ll be away for lot of September, so I don’t expect I’ll post very much for a little while. We’ve got an exciting vacation planned, which I’ll share more about when I get back. Hope you had a good summer and good summer reading!
