My blogging friend Akilah at the Englishist invited me to participate in this summer reading bingo.  I thought I’d give it a try, even though I’ve had a lot of personal stuff going on this summer and have been much more reading things as they come than usual this year. I had a hard time coming up with titles, or motivation to look for titles – that’s me, not the bingo itself.  My super sweet colleague H searched out several for me, including the fireworks on the cover one. I read lots of books and a couple that I wouldn’t have read otherwise, and had fun, even if I only kind of completed the challenge.

1 Heat in the Title – Thor: Son of Asgard: the Heat of Hakurei by Akira Yoshida (pseudonym), Greg Tocchini, and Jay Leisten – this is a youth graphic novel, one of only three youth or teen books I found at my library with heat in the title.  I picked it because it looked to have an author of color.  Then I found out the whole scandal of Akira Yoshida being a Marvel editor who used a Japanese pseudonym to write under and got mad about this now years-old scandal – but still didn’t have a better choice in my preferred areas.  Sigh.

2 Graphic Novel with a POC in it – Monstress: the Blood by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takada – Monstress book 2.  Beautiful, dense, detailed, and very violent.

3 Last in a Series – Obsidio by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff –I don’t know if I loved this as much as the first two, but it was still good fast-moving sci-fi fun.

4 Island setting – City of Islands by Kali Wallace – middle grade fantasy with a Caribbean-feel setting.

5 Collection of Short Stories by a POC – I meant to read A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, edited by Ellen Oh, but though it was on order in June or early July, my library hold still hasn’t come in.  So close!

6 Read 11+ books this summer – yes! My spreadsheet tells me I’ve finished 38 books since June 22.

7 Non-fiction about a POC – not finished, and not all POC, but I’m reading Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls with my daughter, which includes lots of short bios of WOC.

9 Fireworks on the Cover – Something in Between by Melissa de la Cruz – contemporary YA about a Filipina-American high school senior who finds out she’s undocumented.  She was too perfect, but the book still made me cry.

11 Made into a Movie – I don’t think I read a book – though I did watch the new To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before movie on Netflix – so sweet!

13 Free Space

14 LGBTQ Main Character – Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente – this is glittery, slow-reading fun – Eurovision meets The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

15 Road Trip – Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartmann – more in Seraphina’s world.  Also, the first book I’ve read with a love interest in a wheelchair.

17 Latina Main Character – nope. I almost checked out A Festival of Ghosts by William Alexander, too, but I put it on display instead and a kid took it before I went back for it.

18 Camping – close again!  I finished Be Prepared on June 12, 10 days too soon for this challenge.

19 50-year-old Sci-Fi – Does modern sci-fi set in the 50s count? It’s close, right?  The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal is excellent regardless.

21 Beach on the Cover – The Bell at Sealey Head by Patricia McKillip

22 New York Times Bestseller –  Dread Nation: Rise Up by Justina Ireland

23 One Word Title– Warcross by Marie Lu

24 Muslim Female Author – Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson

25 Historical Fiction with Asian Main Character –Bluecrowne by Kate Milford – this sequel to the Left-Handed Fate is a little marginal, as most of the story is from Lucy Bluecrowne’s point of view.  But it’s about Lucy and her half-brother Liao, and I think some of the chapters were from his point of view.  His mother Xiaoming is not POV but a really fabulous character anyway! And hey, it has fireworks on the cover, too!

Thanks to Mocha Girls Read, the Englishist, and Book + Bass for hosting this book bingo!