Quarterly Rewind (June-September ’18 edition)

Hi everyone! I can’t believe it’s nearly the end of September already, I swear I blinked and basically missed the entirety of summer! Anyway, since today is the Autumn Equinox and so the official start of Autumn (though technically British Summertime doesn’t end for another month, but ah well), it’s time for me to do another Quarterly Rewind, a feature started by Jamie over at The Perpetual Page Turner, where we look back at the season just gone and look forward to all the things we have coming up in the next season. This post will cover 22nd June-22nd September:

Image from this summer:

Hannah and I with Samantha Shannon at YALC (one of the few author photos where we don’t look like absolute dorks!).

Favourite Quote From A Book You Read This Summer:

“Plenty of humans were monstrous and plenty of monsters knew how to play at being human” -Vicious, VE Schwab

I just love VE Schwab’s writing so much, it’s so beautifully simple and yet so effective.

This Summer In One Word:

Melting!

Most Popular Review This Summer:

I read 7 books in the period this Rewind covers (not as much as I would have liked, but still pretty good) and have reviewed all of them. Unsurprisingly, given that it was one of the biggest debut releases of this year, my review of Children of Blood and Bone was my most popular one this summer. Here is my review of it, if you want to check it out:

https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2018/08/03/children-of-blood-and-bone-legacy-of-orisha-1-review/

Top Two Books This Summer:

This is actually the easiest choice I’ve had to do for one of these, because two books I read this summer stood out way above the rest of them and they were:

1. Legendary-Stephanie Garber-The sequel to Caraval was even better, even darker and even more magical than the first book and I cannot wait to see what happens in the final book, appropriately titled “Finale”.
2. Children of Blood and Bone-Tomi Adeyemi-I feel so bad for putting off this book for so long when it was so amazing! Such a diverse, amazing, enjoyable fantasy adventure and after THAT ENDING, I need the second book like right now!

Two Things I’m Looking Forward To This Autumn:

1. My friends’ annual Christmas visit-My friends have come up to visit me in Scotland every year since I’ve been at Uni here and it’s my favourite part of the whole year, we have so much fun, eating junk, watching films, going to Edinburgh and talking way too late, it’s awesome and this year is probably going to be our last time doing it, since I probably won’t be here next year, so we’re definitely going to make the most of it.
2. Sarah J Maas’ Edinburgh Event-Sarah J Maas is doing a book event for Kingdom of Ash in Edinburgh in November and I’m super excited-I mean it’s the final Throne of Glass book people!

Three New Obssessions This Summer:

1. Suits-I started watching this legal drama towards the end of June, so it just counts for this Rewind, and I really love it, I mean it’s kind of over the top and I’m pretty sure you couldn’t get away with half the stuff they do in a real law firm, but that’s what makes it so great.
2. Bodyguard-I’ve been watching this series for the past few weeks and I absolutely love it, it’s so dramatic and really well done, I can’t wait to watch the final episode tonight.
3. Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again-Yup I’m obsessed with this film and it’s soundtrack. And also Lily James. No surprises here, I mean it was pretty much guaranteed before I watched it that I was going to become obsessed.

Five Most Popular Blog Posts This Summer:

As always, my five most popular blog posts this Summer were all Top Ten Tuesday posts, you guys really seem to love these:

1. Top Ten Tuesday #166-As with my last rewind, my most popular post this summer was another cover related one, where I shared red, white and blue covers in honour of US Independence Day. I clearly need to do more cover posts, because you guys really seem to love them.

https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2018/07/03/top-ten-tuesday-166/

2. Top Ten Tuesday #175-This topic was from a few weeks ago, and wasn’t even about books! Us bookworms love TV almost as much as we love books, and this post about my favourite bingeworthy TV shows got a lot of love.

https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2018/09/04/top-ten-tuesday-175/

3. Top Ten Tuesday #167-This post was all about my favourite books of 2018 (so far). I love getting to share book love with everyone, so it was super fun to compile this list of all the books I’ve really enjoyed this year.

https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2018/07/10/top-ten-tuesday-167/

4. Top Ten Tuesday #173-This topic was all about books that got us out of reading slumps, as someone who has experienced a lot of reading slumps in the past, it was great to share the books that helped me break that cycle.

https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2018/08/21/top-ten-tuesday-173/

5. Top Ten Tuesday #165-This post was all about my favourite sequels, which was great to talk about, so often sequels can be disappointing, especially middle books in a trilogy, so it was great to get to share some sequels that didn’t disappoint!

https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2018/06/26/top-ten-tuesday-165/

Four Posts I’ve Enjoyed On Other Blogs This Summer:

1. Avalinah did a great post about something I hadn’t really thought of: how the enemies to lovers trope can be damaging to those who have been bullied. It was a really insightful and interesting post so I wanted to share it here:

http://avalinahsbooks.space/discussion-enemies-to-lovers/

2. Sarah Hatch did this hilariously funny post entitled A Day In The Life of A YA Herione, which takes all of the classic YA heroine tropes and combines them! I dare you not to laugh whilst reading it:

A Day in the Life of a YA Heroine

3. Paper Fury did this really awesome post about writing with a mental illness, I found it really enlightening as it was a window into something that I haven’t personally experienced.

https://paperfury.com/how-write-with-mental-illness/

4. Chelsea Summers from Racked did this great article on the Politics of Pockets, though it is two years old, I read it in this Rewind period so I wanted to include it. As someone who is perennially annoyed by the lack of pockets in women’s clothing, I found this article really interesting and very enlightening.

https://www.racked.com/2016/9/19/12865560/politics-of-pockets-suffragettes-women

Five Things That Happened This Summer:

1. I went to YALC for the fourth year in a row with my friend Hannah (and this year we were joined by her friend Hannah, not confusing at all), as with every year, it was super fun and I got loads of cool books.
2. I went to the Edinburgh Fringe for the first time with my friend Nicola to see a live recording of The Guilty Feminist podcast, it was so awesome!
3. I went to the European Championships in Glasgow with my family to see the Men’s Team Gymnastics Final and Team GB won the silver medal which was great to see!
4. I started my final year of University. Hear that screaming? That’s the sound of my impending mental breakdown.
5. I turned 22! Last Wednesday actually 🙂

Six Songs I Listened To Way Too Often This Summer:

1. Waterloo-Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again-Yes I became addicted to this song after I saw the film. No I do not anticipate that stopping anytime soon.
2. Andante, Andante-Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again-I hadn’t heard this song before I saw the film and now I listen to it near enough constantly. Lily James’ voice is just…..ugh, I can’t even.
3. My Shot-Hamilton-I mean I’m pretty much constantly listening to one Hamilton song or another!
4. Super Trouper-Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again-I wasn’t that fond of this song in the first movie, but I’ve found a newfound appreciation for it.
5. Dancing Queen-Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again-I mean this song can’t fail to get you pumped!
6. Mamma Mia-Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again-Can you tell I loved this movie yet?

So there we go guys, that’s my Quarterly Rewind for Summer! What have you enjoyed most on my blog this Summer? What have you been up to? What are you looking forward to this Autumn, books or otherwise? Let me know in the comments!