IMWAYR and Reviews

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? (#IMWAYR) is a weekly blog hop

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is a weekly blog hop co-hosted by Unleashing Readers and Teach Mentor Texts which focuses on sharing books marketed for children and young adults. It offers opportunities to share and recommend books with each other. Make sure to visit these blogs (and those linked in their posts) to find new books and new friends.

(The original IMWAYR, with an adult literature focus, was started by Sheila at Book Journeys and is now hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date.)

You can view all of my July 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 between July 4 through July 10

This week I finished 4 books- 1 adult read and 3 young adult. Here are my reviews of those young adult reads!

Young Adult

I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is Casey’s first young adult book and it wasn’t as good as her adult books, but I thought the story was unique and I did enjoy it. I liked the mystery and the thought that the “perfect” girl would just go missing (on her own choice) and leave a trail of letters for others to find her was pretty fun. I saw myself in this book quite a bit as I was the Valedictorian and was in a pretty good competition with one other student.

View all my reviews

Coming this August:

The Undead Truth of Us by Britney S. Lewis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a read! This was a mix of zombie/horror, romance, and grief and I loved it! I think the way that Britney described Zharie’s grief in losing her mother and being uprooted was really well done. I also thought the metaphor for her seeing zombies at the end was pretty cool and made me think a lot about what baggage we are all carrying. This is a book that will make you feel a lot of emotions, keep you entertained, and will make you think about life.

View all my reviews

Coming in September:

The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What. A. Book! I honestly went into reading this book only knowing that it was kind of like Carrie by Stephen King and was a Tiffany D Jackson book (which is really all I needed to know). This was a delightfully gory horror story full of magic, mystery, and Black pride. Sometimes while reading, I felt like it was taking place in the past with the amount of racism going on, but I kept reminding myself that this is still the reality of our world. It was sickening to read, some of the things that Maddy goes through after her classmates discover she is biracial (and her home life which was just horrifying). I liked the multiple ways Tiffany used to tell this story-a podcast interview, different points of view. What a great read that was entertaining but important at the same time.

View all my reviews

Option Pile-Books I May Pick Up This Week

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!

12 Books in 12 Months

These books were all recommended to me by other reading friends.

Add a little bit of body text by Alexis Ennis

Are you doing any challenges?

Legit KidLit

I also have a YouTube Channel and check out our latest episodes!

I hope you are having a great summer of reading!

Take care.