20 Books of Summer Reading Challenge Results - 2023

 

I love the 20 Books of Summer Reading Challenge and this summer was the fourth year that I've participated. I like to wait until the fall equinox (September 23rd) rather than Labor Day to finish up the challenge, giving myself three extra weeks to complete my goals, but we had visitors this past weekend, followed by a month-long road trip that began a couple of days ago. So, I decided that I better wrap it up now before life gets busier!

This year I chose 20 novels, many of which have been in my stacks for well over a decade. I had so many DNF'd titles in this collection, but it's nice to have finally sampled them and cleared them off my shelves. I had high hopes for a few, but I started those shortly after reading Tom Lake, which may have set up any book for failure. 

In addition to the books on my original list, I added a few others, including a couple of audiobooks. I wound up reading 16 books (see image below), but gave up on a dozen. Overall, I'm very pleased with my results. I won't link to each review (they're all available on this blog), but here are the final ratings:

Three 5-star books

Four 4.5-star books

Five 4-star books

One 3.5-star book

Two 3-star books

One 2-star books

For past posts (and results) about this challenge, click here. 

20 Books of Summer - 2023

 

It's completely out of the question for me to resist Cathy's 20 Books of Summer Reading Challenge. This will be my fourth year participating and while I have a very busy summer ahead (a 5-1/2-week RV trip to Canada, plus two or three families coming to visit after our return), it's impossible for me to not put together a couple of stacks of potential reads for the upcoming months. Having specific books lined up for the challenge helps keep me focused, which is why I tend to look for older titles that have been lurking on my shelves for several years. This year I've chosen to combine mysteries with lighter novels, completely ignoring the top shelf of my TBR bookcase (which is overflowing with top recommendations from 2022--I'll get to those this fall!). I forgot to include audiobooks, but I'm sure a few of those will nudge their way into the final results. 

Have you read any of these? Which would you start with?

For past posts (and results) about this challenge, click here.