Yesterday was the official beginning of Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, which means it’s now starting to get cold in Scotland, hopefully I’ll be able to wear lots of layers and comfy clothes soon (I love Autumn/Winter clothes, they’re the best!). Anyway, the beginning of a new season means it’s time for another Quarterly Rewind post (I can’t believe this came around so fast!). This post will cover from 21st June-22nd September.
Image from this Summer
This is a picture from the end of August when I went to the Harry Potter Studios with my flatmates Nicola and Rebecca for Nicola’s 19th Birthday. It’s a picture of a full scale model of Hogwarts, which was one of my favourite parts of the tour.
Favourite Quote From A Book You Read This Summer:
“I’d rather die on an adventure than live standing still” -A Darker Shade of Magic, VE Schwab
A Darker Shade of Magic was one of my favourite books that I read this summer and this was my favourite quote from it, it’s now one of the quotes that I have on my wall in my room at Uni.
This Summer in One Word:
Bookish!
Most Popular Review This Summer:
I read 12 books in the period this post covers (yup 12!) and the most popular one I reviewed was The Hidden Oracle, the first book in Rick Riordan’s Trials of Apollo series. This makes me very happy as I love to share the love for Rick Riordan:
https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2016/08/12/the-hidden-oracle-the-trials-of-apollo-1/
Top Two Books I Read This Summer:
This was a really hard one because I read so many books this summer and with some minor exceptions, they were all pretty good. However there were only two books I read this summer that I rated 5 stars, the rest were all between 2.5-4 stars, and as those two stand out above the rest, I’ll choose them:
- A Darker Shade of Magic-VE Schwab-Definitely my favourite book that I read this summer, I love the world, the characters, the magic (especially the magic!), everything about this book is just so wonderful (plus I got to meet VE Schwab at YALC and she was awesome!), but I still haven’t forgiven her for the cliffhanger at the end of AGOS.
- Magnus Chase and The Sword of Summer-Rick Riordan-I was a bit apprehensive about this book as it’s the first non-Percy Jackson Riordan that I’ve ever read, but it was so much fun and I’m really excited for the sequel which comes out in a couple of weeks.
Two Things I’m Looking Forward To This Autumn
- Going To Amsterdam-My sister is currently doing a Masters in Amsterdam and for my mum’s birthday in a few weeks’ time, me, my mum and my dad are going out there to visit her for a weekend. I’m so excited as I’ve never been to Amsterdam before.
- SEEING SARAH J MAAS-Yes, the all caps was totally justified! Sarah J Maas is coming to Glasgow on her Empire of Storms tour and me and Nicola (my flatmate) have tickets to go and see her!
Three New Obsessions This Summer:
I’m never very good at thinking of things for this but I’ll have a go:
- VE Schwab’s books-I binged both Shades of Magic books this summer and I have Vicious and This Savage Song still to read. I think it’s safe to say that VE Schwab is a new favourite author.
- #otspsecretsister-I’m taking part in Round 5 of the #otspsecretsister project and I’ve been having so much fun! I love getting mail and getting to know all of the other lovely people doing the project.
- Suburgatory-I watched nearly all of this series over the summer and really enjoyed it, I only have 4 episodes left to watch!
Five Most Popular Blog Posts This Summer:
As usual, my five most popular blog posts from this summer were all Top Ten Tuesday posts!:
- Top Ten Tuesday #67-My most popular post of the last few months was this one from July, where I talked about things that books have made me want to learn about or do. This was such a fun post to write, so I’m so glad everyone enjoyed it!
https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2016/07/26/top-ten-tuesday-67/
2. Top Ten Tuesday #65-My second most popular post is also from July, this one where I shared facts about me. I’m glad so many people seemed to find finding out about me and my life enjoyable!
https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2016/07/12/top-ten-tuesday-65/
3. Top Ten Tuesday #66-This one was about books outside the US, it was a really fun but also a really hard post to do and it got me to realise that I want to read more widely than just the US/UK, so I’m definitely hoping to try and do that over the next few months/years.
https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2016/07/19/top-ten-tuesday-66/
4. Top Ten Tuesday #68-This was my post about books I’d buy if I was given a fully loaded gift card, I wasn’t expecting it to be so popular, but it was fun to decide what I’d buy if I had unlimited money on a gift card.
https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2016/08/02/top-ten-tuesday-68/
5. Top Ten Tuesday #70-This one was about my favourite Fantasy settings and I’m glad this made it on here because it was so much fun sharing all of my favourite fantasy settings with you guys.
https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2016/08/16/top-ten-tuesday-70/
Five Posts I Enjoyed On Other Blogs This Summer:
Once again, thanks to bookmarking, this part of the post has become a lot easier as I’ve marked all the blog posts I’ve enjoyed over the summer. I’m not actually sure if I marked 5 posts this summer, but we’ll see:
1. Cait @ Paper Fury did a post about giving authors’ work second chances and I really enjoyed it as it’s something I often think about when I’m not sure about reading the second book in a series by an author or if an author is one that everyone likes but I didn’t.
2. Emily @ Loony Literate did a post about why we don’t need romance in every YA book and this post is basically my soul because I’ve been saying for years that we are overloaded with romance in YA fiction. There are other things teenagers care about than love! I didn’t even have a relationship in all of my teen years (which admittedly only ended last week, but still). Honestly my friends were more important to me when I was the same age as most YA characters and I’d love to see this reflected more in books, so I really enjoyed Emily’s post.
3. Jo Hogan @ JoHoganBooks did a really interesting post about boys in YA literature and how the lack of boys in books could be making boys reluctant to read, using her son as an example and I found it a really interesting post as I did a similar discussion post here on my own blog, so it was interesting to see how many of the points I made were touched on by Jo’s son, and I thought this was a well written a thought provoking piece.
https://johoganwrites.wordpress.com/2016/08/01/ya-literature-where-are-the-boys/
4. Leah @ Heart Full of Ink did a great post for Potterhead July about the Hogwarts Houses and whether they create division or unity, both in the books and in real life and I thought it was a really great post and I loved her thoughts on the subject.
https://heartfullofink.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/potterhead-july-blog-festival-hogwarts.html
5. Cait @ Paper Fury did an amazingly funny post about underappreciated bookworm talents. You should checked it out, I laughed the entire way through reading it:
Five Things That Happened This Summer:
1. I went to YALC with my friend Hannah in July, we met loads of authors (including Maggie Stiefvater!), and bought loads of books and just generally had an amazing weekend.
2. I went to Harry Potter Studios with my friends Rebecca and Nicola for Nicola’s birthday and we had the most amazing time! The Harry Potter studio tour is awesome, if you ever get the chance to go, you definitely should.
3. I turned 20! Last Monday was my 20th birthday, I am officially no longer a teenager.
4. I started my second year of University in Stirling. It’s going well so far although I hate my shorthand classes for Journalism, shorthand is hard! Still I love living with my friends, makes a change from last year when I hated my flatmates.
5. I went to Bath on holiday with my friends Hannah and Zoe.
Six Songs I Listened To Way Too Often This Summer:
- Hypnotizing-Nashville-This is mostly from the last few days/weeks, this song is great to run to and really fun to sing in the shower.
- Hakuna Matata-The Lion King-What can I say? I love The Lion King!
- Casino-Nashville-This is one of my favourite songs so I listen to it a lot.
- Just Can’t Wait To Be King-The Lion King-I just love this song!
- You Can’t Stop The Beat-Glee Cast Version-I listen to this a lot in the gym.
- Used-Nashville-Another great running song.
So that’s my Quarterly Rewind for this Summer, what do you guys think? What have you enjoyed most on my blog this Summer? And most importantly what have you guys been up to this Summer? Let me know in the comments!
bookloversblog 
Ahh the Harry Potter Studios tour sounds like it would have been amazing!
It was incredible!