(TAG) End of Summer Recap Tag

Hey guys! Now that summer is winding down, I thought I’d make a tag. It probably won’t go anywhere (I only have like 10 followers) but it’ll be fun nonetheless. For the purposes of this tag, I’ll only be counting June to August as summer. If summer is different for you, feel free to adjust it 🙂

The Questions

Which book can you not stop thinking about?
Which book would you rather have not read?
What genre did you read the most?
Which book surprised you the most?
Which book disappointed you the most?
What was your favorite cover?
What was your favorite summer release?
Which books did you plan on reading, but you never got around to?
Which books do you plan on reading in the fall/autumn?

Okay, now that I have the questions set, it’s time to answer them.

The Answers

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch really stuck with me. It’s a dark and heart-wrenching look at the Rwandan genocide of the mid 90s and it’ll really gut you. I don’t read a lot of nonfiction, but I’m glad I read this.

I definitely wish I hadn’t read American Vampire, Vol. 1 by Scott Snyder and Stephen King. This book was some grade A garbage and my life definitely would have been better if I’d steered clear.

Fantasy, hands down. I almost exclusively read fantasy, to be entirely honest. Out of the 24 publications I read this summer, only 3 of them might not be described as fantasy. Out of the fantasy books, the split between urban and epic was fairly balanced. As for age group, I read mostly young adult but I got in a good amount of adult this season.

To be entirely honest, Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare surprised me most. Clare’s work has always been more of a guilty pleasure than anything of actual literary value, but I found myself entirely engrossed in Lady Midnight, both the characters and the plot. She’s really evolved as a writer.

Spirit Bound by Richelle Mead was a huge disappointment for me. I’d loved Blood Promise earlier in the summer, so I was expecting this installment to be just as good if not better, but instead it was a mess of too many plots and not enough development. (Also, I realized when I was looking for the link to my review that I accidentally titled the review Blood Promise and not Spirit Bound. I fixed it, but the URL still has the incorrect title and I can’t change it *face palms*)

My favorite cover was hands down Wilder Girls, which I discuss more below.

2019’s releases have been mostly flops for me, so color me surprised that Wilder Girls by Rory Power was as awesome as it was! I had the pleasure of reading an ARC of it, and it was just so spooky and intense. I’m so excited for more of Power’s work, as it’s sure to please and impress. (And look at that cover!! 😍😍😍)

I intended on reading a lot more books than I did, most notably Nottingham by Nathan Makaryk (which I started and am technically still reading but I’ve kind of put it on hold; it’s also an ARC that came out like a month ago oops), A Divided Mind by M. Billiter (also an ARC whoopsy), and The Eternal by Bianca Hunter (which is an ARC I got from NetGalley like last year and I’ve still not read it oh boy). Basically I’m a mess, but oh well.

Besides actually reading those ones I listed above, I want to continue reading The Lord of the Rings with The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien. I’ve started reading my ARCs of The World on Either Side by Diane Terrana and Lost and Found by Orson Scott Card (really liking the first so far, the second not so much). I want to finish some of the series I’ve started this year, namely The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater and Delirium by Lauren Oliver.

Conclusion

I hope literally anyone else does this tag, but I’m cool if no one does hah. I might use it as my seasonal recap template, since evidently my attempts at doing a monthly recap was for naught.

I tag Nana from The Novelty Notebook and Laurel from The Suspected Bibliophile.