IMWAYR and Reviews

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? #IMWAYR 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 August 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 August 8-14

This week I finished 5 books. Here are my thoughts! Have you read any of them?

Middle Grade

The Tryout: A Graphic Novel by Christina Soontornvat
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thank you Scholastic for sharing this wonderful cheerleading graphic novel! I did not know that I was missing cheerleading books in my life until I read this one. Now, I need all of the middle school cheerleading books. What a time to try and be a cheerleader-feeling awkward and uncertain and wanting to be center of attention? Not easy. I loved how Christina Soontornvat included all of those emotions and anxiety that goes with trying something new. I also really liked the illustrations-they were perfect and showed emotions so well. I know my students will love this book!

View all my reviews Curse of the Night Witch by Alex Aster
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I listened to the Audiobook version and it was really great! This is a perfect book for fans of Percy Jackson or Cece Rios and the Desert of Souls. Adventure, enemies (that may or may not be enemies), unlikely friendships, dark fantasy…it was a great read.

View all my reviews

Young Adult

The Getaway by Lamar Giles
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What. A. Ride! Thank you Scholastic for sharing this horror young adult dystopian with me. I devoured this book with all of its twists and turns. The multiple points of view and other media combined with short chapters kept you turning the pages. This book will have you on the edge of your seat and honestly a little scared that it could…be real one day…but let’s hope not.

Also…I’ll never look at theme parks the same again.

View all my reviews The Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was intrigued by this book because of the title-I mean, a Mary Shelley Club? Frankenstein? Horror? What could go wrong?

This book was such a thriller and honestly…pretty scary. The Mary Shelley Club likes to scare other people and they’ve made it a competition, but what happens when things go too far? I enjoyed the movie references, the mystery, the twists, and look forward to more by this author.

View all my reviews

Adult

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

One of the most beautiful and heart wrenching stories I’ve read. I loved the history, the people, the flashbacks, everything. This book will make you think and make you want to learn more about ’50s San Francisco.

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! 🙂

Today was the official start back to school, so here are the final results! Not too bad-63 books! I did read 30 picture books and didn’t count them…so really I did meet my goal. 😉

2022 Summer Book-A-Day by Alexis Ennis

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!

A great episode for teaching poetry! Watch for poetry activities and authors sharing their novels in verse.