Books Read in August

September is here! Yay! I am happy to say good-bye to August and to summer - it was a long, HOT, difficult summer here with no vacation time. Now, if we can just get some cooler weather and the rain would stop...

On the positive side, August was a great reading month, with 6 good books, including 3 more to end my Big Book Summer Challenge with a bang! Here's what I finished reading in August:

• Plus One by Elizabeth Fama (IL) - teen/YA fiction on audio
• The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell (Puerto Rico, Italy) - adult fiction
• An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green (NY) - adult fiction, reviewed for Shelf Awareness

• Disappeared by Francisco X. Stork (Mexico) - teen/YA fiction on audio
• Anne Frank's Diary: The Graphic Adaptation by Ari Folman and David Polonsky (illustrator) (Netherlands) - adult & YA graphic memoir, reviewed for Shelf Awareness
• City of Savages by Lee Kelly (NY) - teen/YA fiction

I finished 6 books in August, and 5 of them were fiction. You can read my reviews of each of them at the links (and I will link to the two Shelf Awareness reviews as soon as they are published). Three were teen/YA novels, and the other half were for adults, with two audio books. It was an excellent reading month - I enjoyed every one of these very much! My favorite was definitely The Sparrow, a novel I had been hearing about for years that lived up to the hype and blew my mind - I want to read the sequel now.

Progress in 2018 Reading Challenges:
This is my favorite part of my monthly summary - updating my Reading Challenges! I read 2 books from my own shelves for my Mount TBR Reading Challenge, bringing my total-to-date to 16. I can always rely on my Big Book Summer Challenge to boost my TBR numbers! For the Monthly Motif Reading Challenge, August was Award Winners, and The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell won 6 literary awards! No new books for the Back to the Classics Challenge, and just one for the 2018 Badass Books Challenge: a book chosen by a friend. It was quite the literary travel month, with Italy, Puerto Rico, Netherlands, Mexico, and even another planet (Rakhat) added to my Travel the World in Books Reading Challenge. For my 2018 Literary Escapes Challenge, I added just one new state, Illinois (and I have now read 8 books this year set in New York). And for my own Big Book Summer Challenge, I read 3 more Big Books, for a total of 6 for the summer.
 
Finally, Bookish Bingo hosted by Chapter Break - not really a challenge per se, but a fun game that I play each month. I filled in 19 squares in August - a good Bingo month for me!

Spaces filled in:

Plus One - Outdoor activity, not in a series, free book, empowered female
The Sparrow - In a series, society, musician
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing - Read a physical book, new adult, pop culture references
Disappeared - Contemporary, suspense, audio book
Anne Frank's Diary: The Graphic Adaptation - Woman on the cover, deception
City of Savages - New to me author, shelf love, past rears its ugly head

 
What was your favorite book read in August?