Well, things slowed way down here after this challenge ended! I mean, I still have a couple of reviews to post for books I read for the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books Summer Romance Book Bingo (and I need to recap that one, too…) and I’ve read one or two more books for the Nook & Cranny challenges, but for the past couple of months my life has been consumed by buying a house and moving all my stuff. I’m still surrounded by boxes, and most of my books are in those boxes, but I feel like it’s time to get back to blogging.
So! My thoughts on the Seattle Art and Lecture/Seattle Public Library Adult Summer Reading Book Bingo… this year honestly was a real challenge for me. The cyber attack on SPL definitely didn’t help, as they were the only library with digital copies of some of the books I wanted to read for the challenge, so that set my timeline back a bit. Also, the whole house buying/packing thing meant that I had less time to read physical books, so some of my original picks for books I already owned had to be replaced by audiobooks of different, available titles at the last minute.
I enjoyed participating in the challenge as always, and I did get my Blackout in the end, but I can’t say that I enjoyed a lot of the books I read. This has been a disappointing reading year for me in general; very few books have lived up to my expectations, I’ve averaged about one DNF a month, and this month alone I had two books I bounced off of so fast, I didn’t even add them to my reading log (one was because of a poor choice of audio narrator, so I’ll probably read it in another format). I struggled with a lot of the books that I chose for the prompts, and others were just “meh”.
I don’t think any of the fault lies with the challenge itself. There was a pretty good mix of prompts, a combination of thought-provoking squares like “Housing/Poverty Justice” and “Refugee/Immigrant Memoir” and lighter reads like “Queer Joy” and “Cozy.” As always, I appreciate the organizers of this event for including multiple LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC themed squares that will encourage people to diversify their reading. Even though I read pretty diversely in terms of genre and author identity, this challenge always gets me to get outside the box and try new-to-me authors or spend more time in categories I don’t visit as often, such as poetry and memoir.
That said, I have definitely enjoyed being done with the challenge and getting to listen to whatever audiobook I want as I unpack, or even to take a break and catch up on some podcasts.
Did you participate in the SAL/SPL Adult Summer Reading Book Bingo this year? If so, what was your experience like?