It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

Summer break is in full swing and my reading habits are too!

You can view all of my June Reads here, but below is a list of the books I read this past week and my thoughts. Comment below if you’ve read some of these or want to know more.

Books I Finished

This week I finished 8 books! EIGHT! And they were all really great reads! Here are my reviews for the Middle Grade and Young Adult books I read.

Middle Grade

Frizzy by Claribel A. Ortega
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I flew through this book and loved every page. The raw emotions about hair love made me keep reading to find out what would happen – and I loved the ending so much. Thank you NetGalley and First Second for sharing a copy with me.

View all my reviews

Young Adult

African Town by Irene Latham
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thank you GP Putman for an early copy of this YA historical fiction novel in verse.

I had never heard of Africatown/African Town and the last slave ship. I didn’t know we knew the last slave ship. This book enlightened me in so many ways-life as a slave while knowing life in Africa, life after the civil war, American born enslaved people v African born, and so much more. A very important read.

View all my reviews We Are Not from Here by Jenny Torres Sanchez
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thank you Penguin Young Readers and Netgalley for an early copy of this book. This book will break your heart, but it will also mend it. It is full of hope, love, and perseverance. The experiences of immigrants from South and Central America to the United States vary, but this book brings those stories to the forefront and really opened my eyes on what this experience is like. It is not an easy experience and one that we should all understand or at least read about so that we can do better.

View all my reviews The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I am sad to say I had never read this book or really even heard of it until I heard about the series. I love Jenny Han’s series-To All the Boys I Loved Before- and this book had the same feel. A warm, cozy read full of romance, fun, and heartbreak. It is a perfect romance for middle grade to young adult as it is not too mature. I especially liked the flashing back and forth from the past to the present and seeing how everyone was changing and interacting each summer. It makes me want to get my own summer beach house!

View all my reviews

Option Pile

Challenges

30 books in 3 months

I am participating in Jessica Brody’s 30 books in 3 months challenge. I have decided to adapt it to 30 ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies) to help me stay focused on the books I NEED to read. I have so many ARCs, I need to be making a bigger dent than I have been. (I am a very distracted and moody reader!)

30 Arcs in 3 months by Alexis Ennis

Summer Book-A-Day

Each summer, I challenge myself to a book a day-inspired by Donalyn Miller (The Book Whisperer). This year, it is 74 days/74 books! I will update as often as I can! 🙂

2022 Summer Book-A-Day by Alexis Ennis

Library Summer Reading Challenge

I am also participating in our local library’s summer book challenge. They have awesome prizes and I love being able to log my minutes that I read!

Are you doing any challenges?

I hope you are having a great summer of reading!

Take care.