Month in review: August

Y'know how August tends to be a slow news month? Well, it was a slow blogging month for me. This summer has been brutally hot in NYC (as opposed to last year, when June was almost totally rained out) and has definitely given me a case of the summer doldrums. Of course, just as the calendar turns to September, the heat ratchets back up into the high 90s. I've never been so ready for fall.

This is also time for my annual pity party that I'm not in school. In elementary and middle school I hated fall because I hated going back to school, but by the time high school hit, going back to school was manageable, at least. After the first year of college I started going to classes almost all year, and was living full time in my college town by junior year, so fall meant the arrival of all of my friends who had gone home for the summer, and the return of forensics competitions. This is my third fall without school to return to, and I still get a bit bummed out, though it hasn't been nearly as bad this year as previous falls. Probably because I am beginning to realize that while I would love to return to school, none of my preferred study paths would lead me to a job with more guarantees than I have with my bachelor's degree. So for now it's best for me to keep on plugging away at my current job while continuing to apply for every sales, marketing or editorial publishing position I see.

But enough non-book-ish introspection - what was this month like in blogging? Reviews, reviews and more reviews. As part of my desire to do as little work as possible, I wrote 95% of my blog posts this month in large doses on a Saturday or Sunday. I'd usually knock out two weeks' worth in one weekend, leaving the rest of my week free to waste time in other ways - like re-reading The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingjay- those posts were what my middle school writing teacher would call "Thursday night specials," as I didn't finish my rereads until Thursday evening for all three books.

And of course, Mockingjay was the big event of the month, if not the biggest book-event of the summer! I designed my own Team Katniss shirt, and attended the big release party at Books of Wonder. I know people are still reading (if they were frugal and ordered the book online, or late to the party and only just started reading The Hunger Games), but if you've finished and are dying to talk about it, there's still conversation going on in my Mockingjay post! I have somewhat strong feelings about the novel, but I also have an intense curiosity to know why people felt differently and want to hear from all sides!

Some stand out books I reviewed this month were Finding My Place, about a black girl moving to a white suburb in the 60s, and Little Blog on the Prairie, where a girl goes to "frontier camp" with her family and chronicles the experience on a smuggled cell phone. I was also surprised by how much I enjoyed Princess of Glass, considering how underwhelmed I was with the first book, Princess of the Midnight Ball.

Here's hoping that September brings cooling air (and no hurricane) to the city, and lots of great books to read!