Calendar Girls October 2019

Happy Halloween bloggers! Welcome to the best season of the year! To celebrate we’re bringing you another month of Calendar Girls.

Calendar Girls is a monthly blog event created by Melanie at MNBernard Books and Flavia the Bibliophile and now be hosted by Katie at Never Not Reading and Adrienne at Darque Dreamer Reads.  It is designed to ignite bookish discussions among readers and was inspired by the 1961 Neil Sedaka song Calendar Girl.

This month, we’re talking about books that help pull us out of the dreaded reading slump.

For the most part, I don’t have a particular book that I reread when I’m in a reading slump, but a type of book that I read to pull me out of it. When I realized I’m falling behind on my reading goals, I start to read YA romances to kick up my book intake. I’m not really a re-reader. I’ve re-read Harry Potter a handful of times and A Prayer for Owen Meany at least a half dozen times, but I don’t really like re-reading books. Which I’m sure puts me in a minority when it comes to readers and bloggers.

I’m going to highlight a few of YA romances that have helped with reading slumps in this post, but my overall pick is going to the book that brought me out of my most recent reading slump.

 Alex and Eliza: A Love Story by Melissa De La Cruz: I know this statement may come as a shock to some of you, but I greatly enjoy Alexander Hamilton related content. Is this book historically accurate? No, people who were in jail or France at the time this book takes place are in New Jersey hanging out going to weddings. Is it objectively good? Not really.  But did I love it with my whole heart? Yes. I DEVOURED this book in like, six hours in 2016 after about a month of finishing one book. I was then able to essentially speed read a bunch of other books. This series holds a place in my heart and I will continue to talk about how much I enjoyed this not great book because I like cute romances and Alexander Hamilton.

 The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli: I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump most of this year, but this book was one that started to get me out of it. Becky Albertailli is such a fun writer who is able to capture so many different aspects of being a teen and read through it fairly quickly once I got into it. It’s just a really cute book that can be read over a couple days.

 

 

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz: This is a much-beloved book, I’ve discovered, but I read it for the first time this year, and this one may end up being a book that I read more than once. I again devoured this book over a weekend. It was too good to put down.

 

 

But the book that broke my 2019 reading slump was:

Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston.

I didn’t “read” this one, I listened to it, but getting into this book re-energized my love of reading and made me want to not only read more but work on my open book so much more. Red, White, and Royal Blue is the type of book that makes those who read it want to talk about it. I haven’t read a book I wanted to talk about as much as I want to talk about this book since The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue two years ago. This book is just… there aren’t words it’ss so good. After reading it, I was able to start reading more physical books faster as well as listen to audiobook continuously on my commute instead of substituting with podcasts. This is such a good book and if you are in the small group of people left who have not read this book, read it and then talk to me about it, because I still have many, many things to say.

Do you have a more traditional take on a book that gets you out of a reading slump? Leave a comment or created your own Calendar Girls post to join the discussion!

Until next time Internet,

Deanna