Alright, so I slacked on my wrap-ups. Conveniently, it was all the Summer months that I missed, so here goes an all-in-one finishing post to summarize my summer. I definitely didn’t read as many books as I should have, and I’m way behind on my books to review and Goodreads challenge, but oh well.

Read: 14 novels

1. Off the Page by Jodi Picoult and Samantha Van Leer
2. Mosquitoland by David Arnold
3. The Art of Lainey by Paula Stokes
4. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han
5. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Johnathan Safran Foer
6. Since You’ve Been Gone by Morgan Matson
7. The Future of Us by Jay Asher
8. The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger
9. The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation by M. T. Anderson
10. Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin
11. The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
12. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
13. The Puppet Turners of Narrow Interior by Stephanie Barbe Hammer
14. Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Reviewed: 5 novels

1. Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith
2. Off the Page by Jodi Picoult and Samantha Van Leer
3. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Johnathan Safran Foer
4. Since You’ve Been Gone by Morgan Matson
5. The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Mini Reviews: 3 novels

1. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
2. Simon vs. the Homo Sapien Agenda by Becky Albertalli
3. Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

Discussed:

• Crabby Conversations: Spontaneous Road Trip
• Confessions of a Teenage Reader: The Inevitable Hiatus
• Confessions of a Teenage Reader: Beautiful Little Birdy
• Crabby Conversations: The Bookish Patriarchy

Book Haul: 17 novels

• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• The Stranger by Albert Camus
• Even the Stars Look Lonesome by Maya Angelou
• Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor
• The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
• The Pearl by John Steinbeck
• The Plague by Albert Camus
• The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
• The Underdogs by Markus Zusak
• 100 Sideways Miles by Andrew Smith
• Their Eyes were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
• Liars, Inc by Paula Stokes
• The Marbury Lens by Andrew Smith
• One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest by Ken Kesey
• The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
• Wicked by Gregory Maguire
• Summer of the Oak Moon by Laura Templeton

Bookish Excitement: 

• YALL Festival and Decatur Book Festival released their author line-ups.
• Jodi Picoult and Samantha Van Leer held a signing sponsored by The Little Shop of Stories for their new book Off the Page.
• 995 Bookmarks
• Little Shop is hosting a good many author events coming in October and I’m super pumped!

Non-Bookish Excitement: 

I, surprisingly, had a very eventful summer without doing much…

• Tybee Island and Orange Beach trip
• Nashville trip to visit Vanderbilt (the campus and the school are both perfect, by the way)
• It’s been the summer of concerts: Dave Matthews Band, Train, Fall Out Boy
• Zoo Atlanta… twice

Guys, the summer has been beautiful and full of everything and I’m ready for it to be over but I’m also not ready to go back to school. Just think about it. I’m a senior now. This is it. You spend three years getting comfortable, one year to enjoy the glory, and the process begins again. Scary, right? I guess that’s just how it will always be. Cyclical to a fault. Anyway. Let’s see if I can even begin to pick the best parts out of the summer…

Summer Favorites:

• Read: Since You’ve Been Gone by Morgan Matson– How can I not pick this one? It’s a summer anthem book.
• Reviewed: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Johnathan Safran Foer
• Mini Review: Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
• Discussed: The Bookish Patriarchy
• Haul: 100 Sideways Miles by Andrew Smith
• Bookish: Guys. I’m five bookmarks away from reaching 1,000. Five.
• Non-Bookish: The concert string– specifically Dave Matthews and Train.