Hosted by Cathy at 746books, 20 Books of Summer is an annual challenge to read and review 20 books from your TBR. This year, the challenge ran from 1 June to 1 September, and you can see my sign up post here.
Despite my initial reticence to take part in the challenge this year, I decided in the end that there was no harm in giving it a go, and potentially reducing the number of books from 20 to 15 or 10 if needed, all perfectly allowed under the rules. I had a strong start, although that did then wane due to reasons, but I’m delighted to say that I finished it, admittedly with the help of a couple of mini-reviews (marked with an *)!
Here are the books I read for the challenge, with links to my reviews:
- Reptile Memoirs by Silje Ulstein translated by Alison McCullough
- Her Majesty’s Royal Coven by Juno Dawson
- The Guest by Emma Cline
- Weyward by Emilia Hart
- Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney
- The Library Suicides by Fflur Dafydd
- Eversion by Alastair Reynolds
- The Island by Victoria Hislop
- Bibliomaniac by Robin Ince
- The Book of the Most Precious Substance by Sara Gran
- The Hod King by Josiah Bancroft
- Educated by Tara Westover
- The Square of Sevens by Laura Shepherd-Robinson
- Midnight at Malabar House by Vaseem Khan
- Washington Black by Esi Edugyan*
- Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter*
- The Housekeepers by Alex Hay
- Yellowface by Rebecca F. Kuang
- Other Women by Emma Flint*
- Murder in the Family by Cara Hunter*
So there you have my 20 Books of Summer, which as expected, bears little resemblance to my originally selected titles. Did you take part in 20 Books of Summer this year? Let me know how you got on in the comments! 😎
Jo's Book Blog 
We have a few books in common. I’m waiting on Weyward coming on audio from the library but it’s a huge waiting list!
I hope you get it soon – it’s one of my books of the year!
Still haven’t read Weyward 🤦🏼♀️.
Sure looks like a great summer’s reading when you see them all together like that. “Square of Sevens” would have been on my list as well, except I never wrote a review for it. Still excited to see your first Karin Slaughter featured there 😄.
It does, doesn’t it? About half of them were 5 star reads too – including Weyward (hint, hint).
Must get me some more Karin Slaughter now… 😀
Congratulations Jo fab selection of books! x
Thanks, Nicki – I rally enjoyed putting this post together, and seeing the range of titles and genres that I read. It’s been a good summer for reading 🙂
Well done Jo and thanks for taking part!
Thank you, Cathy x
Congrats on completing the challenge! Which was the best from these?
Thank you! That’s a tough one – my favourites were probably Her Majesty’s Royal Coven, Weyward, The Book of the Most Precious Substance, and The Square of Sevens. I’m not sure I could pick just one though!
definitely adding them to wish list.
I hesitate about taking part every year but always succumb in the end! You did well to read 20 – something I can never achieve… – but I’m even more impressed that you managed to review them all……
The reading I can usually manage, and there were others I read over the summer as well as those. Reviewing them all has always been the difficulty for me…
I’m about 12 books behind in terms of reviewing and that’s just this year. I also have a backlog from last year that I suspect I will never get to
I accepted some time ago that I won’t review everything that I read. If I’ve not something drafted within a week or so of finishing a book, I let it go.
Since you liked Lillian Boxfish, you really must read Rooney’s latest – From Dust to Stardust! Even better than Boxfish – at least for me, it was. Congratulations for finishing the challenge.
Thank you for the recommendation – I’ll add it to my list!