Books Read in March

March was a BIG reading month for me, with a combination of book group selections, review books, audiobooks, and my first books read for Booktopia, an upcoming book event. Here's what I read last month:

• The Forgetting by Sharon Cameron, YA fiction audiobook
• The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (Vietnam, CA), adult fiction
• Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson (NY), adult fiction

• Making Friends with Billy Wong by Augusta Scattergood (AR), middle-grade audiobook
• The Last Neanderthal by Claire Cameron (France), adult fiction - SA review
• The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck (Germany), adult fiction - Booktopia

• How To Be Human by Paula Cocozza (UK), adult fiction - SA review
• The Impossible Fortress by Jason Rekulak (NJ), adult fiction - Booktopia

Wow, 8 books - that is almost a record for me! They were all fiction, mostly for adults but with one YA and one middle-grade novel thrown in. Three were audiobooks. I enjoyed all 8 books, so it's tough to choose a favorite out of this group. I think my #1 choice would be The Sympathizer (which won the Pulitzer award), with Another Brooklyn a close second - interestingly, both of those were read for book groups, which always lead to good reads! Links above are to my reviews; I will post links to the two that I reviewed for Shelf Awareness when they are published.

Progress on 2017 Reading Challenges:
This is my favorite part of my monthly summary - updating my Reading Challenges! I read 8 books last month and not a single one was from my own shelves for my Read Your Own Damn Books Challenge! For the Monthly Motif Reading Challenge, March was Time Traveler month which included dystopian or sci fi in a very different world, so The Forgetting fit perfectly.  No classics last month for the 2017 Back to the Classics Challenge. I slotted all 8 books into categories for my Well-Rounded Challenge. For my Travel the World in Books Reading Challenge, I added the Vietnam and read additional books set in the UK, France, and Germany. For my 2017 Literary Escapes Challenge, I added California, Arkansas, and New Jersey.

Finally, Bookish Bingo hosted by Chapter Break - not really a challenge per se, but a fun game that I play each month! Here is my Bingo card for March, with just 15 squares filled in. Almost everything I read last month was realistic fiction, so I missed some squares with fantasy elements.

Books fit in the following squares:

The Forgetting - in a series, audiobook
The Sympathizer - trust/betrayal, travel, college, recommended to you
Another Brooklyn - library book
The Last Neanderthal - spring fling, mentor/apprentice
Making Friends with Billy Wong - green on the cover, free book
The Impossible Fortress - music/bands
How to Be Human - changing habits
The Women in the Castle - engagement
Free space

What was your favorite book read in March?