Shannon's Library

Summer is my very favorite season. Life slows down and our busy, strict schedules tend to disappear. And what does this mean for us and our families? More free time. And what does more free time mean? More time to relax and read books!

Summer reading is the best! It’s always been important to me to use the summer to instill a greater love of reading in my children. It hurts my heart a little bit when kids refer to reading time during the school year as “homework.” Don’t get me wrong. I understand why teachers have their students read every day as part of their homework. And I’m so glad they do! But when summer hits, that’s when we need to remind our kids that reading can also JUST BE FOR FUN!!

Penny-A-Page has been my way of encouraging summer reading in our family for years. But this incentivization method can’t last forever. Kids grow up. They graduate. They get real jobs. They marry. Sadly, receiving a penny for each page they read in a book loses its charm.

I recently found myself wondering how I could continue to encourage my grown kiddos to read – without being obnoxious about it. This summer, I decided to try something new. I asked my daughters if they wanted to be in a summer “Book Club” with me. We’d pick a book to read each month and then go out to dinner to talk about it. If there is one thing my girls love, it’s food! And the possibility of a yummy dinner at a restaurant once a month was near impossible for them to turn down!! And, so, our mini-summer book club was born!

Looking back, it was such a fun thing! I realize now that reading with my kids doesn’t have to stop just because they are growing up and leaving my house. Books still have the power to bring us together and form new, fun memories!

Here are the three books we read this summer and what we thought about them!

(And if you want to win these three books in a giveaway…keep reading to find out how!)

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JUNE

Book Description:

Seventeen-year-old Ezren Hart interns in her mother’s terraforming lab, studying Belethea’s deadly storms with the dream of giving her backwater planet clear skies. But when budget cuts threaten to shut down the lab, Ezren enters Belethea’s Race Royale, the system’s deadliest and most lucrative race. To win, she’ll have to run, drive and fight her way across Belethea’s barren landscape while navigating its savage and volatile storms. With her planet’s future on the line, she can’t afford to lose. But first, she’ll have to convince her handsome royal partner that their planet is worth saving. Foster Sterling is a jaded ex-racer still reeling from his partner’s death in a training accident. When Ezren Hart comes charging into his life, her passion reminds him of what he once loved about racing. Still, no matter how fast they go, they can’t outrun the mysterious string of deadly accidents following them like a curse. But with time running out and their survival on the line, both Ezren and Foster must decide if their dreams are worth their lives.

Our Thoughts:

This was a fun, stand-alone book definitely geared towards younger teenagers. As such, Tess, my youngest daughter, liked it the most. As she should! We would describe it as a Hunger Games type of contest that takes place on a distant planet from Earth. However, it’s not nearly as brutally violent as The Hunger Games. Teenagers race across a savage planet trying to survive storms, creatures and attacks from the other racers – all while falling in love with each other, of course! It’s clean. It’s action-packed. It’s everything a tween or a young teen could want in a story!

(We will agree, however, that the writing felt a little simple, the made-up curse words were overused and slightly annoying, and there were a few unexplained plot holes.)

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JULY

Book Description:

After centuries of sleep, the gods are warring again. But eighteen-year-old Iris Winnow just wants to hold her family together. Her mother is suffering from addiction and her brother is missing from the front lines. Her best bet is to win the columnist promotion at the Oath Gazette. To combat her worries, Iris writes letters to her brother and slips them beneath her wardrobe door, where they vanish – into the hands of Roman Kitt, her cold and handsome rival at the paper. When he anonymously writes Iris back, the two of them forge a connection that will follow Iris all the way to the front lines of battle; for her brother, the fate of mankind, and love. Divine Rivals is an epic enemies-to-lovers fantasy novel filled with hope and heartbreak, and the unparalleled power of love.

Our Thoughts:

We all agreed that this was a fun, unique romance novel. We found a lot of comparisons to the movie, “You’ve Got Mail,” which, of course, we love! Tess and Alex enjoyed this book the most. They must be the more romantic members of the family! Meg and I wanted a little more action/fantasy and a little less romance. Be warned, the story ends on a pretty major cliffhanger. The second book of the series, “Ruthless Vows,” will be coming out at the end of December. We’ll for sure be reading it all together and having another dinner outing to discuss!

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AUGUST

Book Description:

Fourteen-year-old Mona isn’t like the wizards charged with defending the city. She can’t control lightning or speak to water. Her familiar is a sourdough starter and her magic only works on bread. She has a comfortable life in her aunt’s bakery making gingerbread men dance. But Mona’s life is turned upside down when she finds a dead body on the bakery floor. An assassin is stalking the streets of Mona’s city, preying on magic folk, and it appears that Mona is his next target. And in an embattled city suddenly bereft of wizards, the assassin may be the least of Mona’s worries…

Our Thoughts:

This was a quirky, stand-alone fantasy story that three of us loved and one of us did not. (Alex, my oldest daughter, didn’t enjoy it very much.) But the rest of us did! In fact, it was my favorite of the three books we read this summer – so maybe take MY word for it! It was really a fun read! I loved the heroine, Mona, so much! I loved that she had to use her magical talent of baking to save the city against an evil invasion. And, of course, I loved that there were dough golems involved. You know by now that I’m a sucker for a story with a golem or two!

All in all, our first-ever summer book club was a success! We will most definitely be doing it again next summer!

As our summer book club wraps up, I find myself with an extra copy of each of these books. Who would like a chance to win them? Simply leave a comment on this blog post to be entered to win. Or reply “FREE BOOKS” to my Instagram story/post about this summer book club. Good luck!