Avoiding the Mid-Summer Reading Slump.

Annnnd the first week of August is over. I swear we are going to blink and it will be Christmas Day. This year has blown by so fast. I say that every year around this time but really…that’s the way the world works.

This past week I haven’t finished anything. So my reading has started out slumpy for this month. But I am determined to change that. Every August/September I feel like a broken record. These are the months I really start to get slumpy, right before the Holidays. And then during the Holidays I usually want to read all the things but am too busy to do so.

So how do we beat the end of summer slumps? Things I like to do is book shop. It sounds funny but the idea of reading something new can really pull you out of a reading slump. Browsing books in a shop and finding something that you are excited to read can help.

Re-arrange your shelves. Sometimes it’s easier to forget books that you want to read on your TBR. It can also feel good to get rid of some books that are no longer interesting and make more space for new books. Fall clean and get ready for those cozy reads coming out.

Another thing I like to try to do is read something fun, light, comedic, and short. This can be a re-read of sorts or something new. Usually it works best if it something new because then it makes me want to read more books I have never read before, which is all of my TBR.

If that doesn’t feel right then a comfort read may be the right path. Something that you like to read over and over again. For me, this is usually The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

What if none of this works? Then maybe you need a book break completely. I can get this way where I hyper-focus on Animal Crossing or a new craft project, or maybe a new TV show where I would rather be doing anything but reading. If you are burnt out then don’t force it. Take a reading vacation and do something else with your free time. You will read it again. But if you force it then sometimes you make things worse and end up hating books that you might actually enjoy.

Let me know what you like to do during a reading slump. I am always open to trying something new to pull me out of them.

Book Review: Hawk by James Patterson

Hawk by James Patterson 

3.5 out of 5 stars

🐝******************************🐝

I am so conflicted with this book. I enjoyed Maximum Ride in high school. It was a series I started from freshman year to today, over 15 years of following these books. My problem starts with the last few books in the Maximum Ride series. If you have read it you may be on the same page as me. The last books felt forced and done too quickly, like there was a lot of wonderful ideas but the execution of those ideas to the end of that series, in my opinion, was rushed. 

I had no clue Hawk was a continuation of the Maximum Ride series. I guess I thought that the Maximum Ride series was over after 9 books. I found interest in Hawk thinking it was a spin off series to the original series since there was a mention of Max form the Maximum Ride series in the first few chapters. 

One of the issues I have with Hawk is that it starts off very similar to The Angels Experiment, Book 1 in the Maximum Ride series. There was a mention of gangs and a love interest so I was hoping the book would stay on that road. But after Hawks experimented on friends get captured she has to go rescue them. The ideas behind gangs, mafia, and a love interest disappears and aren’t really mentioned again till the very end of the book at which point there is no need for them anymore. 

I found Hawk very repetitive to the other books in the series. I hope that the series will start to change to something new if James Patterson continues the series. But at this point I feel like the books keep going in circles. We as readers have already been here done that 9 books ago. 

🐝******************************🐝

A story for a new generation of Maximum Ride fans! 17-year-old Hawk is growing up hard and fast in post-apocalyptic New York City . . . until a perilous destiny forces her to take flight.

Where is Maximum Ride?

Ten years ago a girl with wings fought to save the world. But then she disappeared.

Now she’s just a fading legend, remembered only in stories.

Hawk doesn’t know her real name. She doesn’t know who her family was, or where they went. The only thing she remembers is that she was told to wait on a specific street corner, at a specific time, until her parents came back for her.

She stays under the radar to survive…until a destiny that’s perilously close to Maximum Ride’s forces her to take flight. Someone is coming for her.

But it’s not a rescue mission.

It’s an execution.

🐝******************************🐝

#books #bookstagram #booknerd #bookworm #read #goodreads #booknerdproblems #bookquotes   #reading #reader #goodreadschallenge #bookreviews #bookblog #bookblogger #jamespatterson