2016 Big Book Summer Wrap-Up

The 2016 Big Book Summer Challenge officially closed on Monday, Labor Day, but I needed to write a couple more reviews before I could write this wrap-up post.

I had a slow start this year, with far more reading obligations (book groups & paid reviews) getting in the way of reading my Big Books than usual. But I read like crazy in August - two long days of air travel and a 4-day readathon Labor Day weekend helped!

In the end, I finished 5 Big Books this summer, which I feel good about. All were from my TBR shelves (some that had languished there for years), so that makes me happy, too.

As a reminder, here are the 6 books I planned/hoped to read for the Big Book Challenge this summer:

I only got through four of these (the bottom four) but ended up reading an extra Big Book for a book group, so here is what I read for the 2016 Big Book Summer Challenge (reviews at the links):

• The Marvels by Brian Selznick, 665 pages (middle-grade)
• Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, 507 pages
• The Many Lives of John Stone by Linda Buckley-Archer, 444 pages (YA)
• The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater, 438 pages (YA)
• Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson, 460 pages

As always, the challenge was a lot of fun, and I was thrilled to finally get to some of these Big Books that have been collecting dust on my shelves!

What did YOU read this summer?

If you didn't join the Big Book Summer Challenge this year, I hope you will consider joining the fun next summer!