This weekly meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

I can't believe how quickly summer is winding down! Just two weeks until school starts. I've got a lot of reading to cram into those two weeks. I have another huge stack of library books to read my way through. Ah, I love summer!

A Forthcoming Wizard by Jody Lynn Nye - Review
My sign-up post and goals for Bout of Books 8.0 (My first read-a-thon! I'm so excited!)
Library Loot (Remember that big stack of library books I was talking about? Here it is in all its glorious detail!)
Just One Day by Gayle Forman - Review

Going Clear by Lawrence Wright
Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library by Chris Grabenstein (Loved this book in so many ways!)

Just two? Really? I guess it's a sign of things to come once school starts. . .

The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway (Just 50 pages to go!)

Yup, there's that stack of library books. Hopefully, Bout of Books will help me make the stack smaller!

This is my very first read-a-thon as a book blogger (okay, my very first read-a-thon ever), and I'm very excited. However, there are only two weeks left until school starts (I'm a teacher), and I have tons of stuff to do before September hits. This is about the time of year when my reading pace slows down because I'm a lot busier. But maybe, just maybe, participating in Bout of Books will keep me going strong!

• Read three(ish) hours a day
• Read four books
• Catch up on my review writing (I am so far behind!)

I've got a large stack of library books to choose from (it's summer; that's always true). Three of them are due this week, so I'm planning to finish those. Anything else from the stack is a bonus!

For more info on what's in the giant stack of library books, check out my Library Loot post.

Allyson Healey is a straight-A, AP-crazy, very driven high school student. But now that she’s graduated and on to college, she’s not so sure if that’s the life she wants to have. Her parents gave her a graduation present any teenager would jump at – a three-week tour of Europe. Except the tour is just about over, and Allyson hasn’t had any fun Three days left in London, then it’s back home to college and parental pressure.

So when a Dutch boy she just met invites her to Paris for just one day, Allyson decides to do something crazy: She goes with him. For one day, she lives in the moment and does things she never would have done before. When she returns to her normal life, she realizes that she’s just not satisfied with the person she has been.

I love traveling in Europe, so any book that includes a spur-of-the-moment trip to Paris is on my reading list. I enjoyed watching Allyson grow and figure out who she wanted to be. I did not really enjoy the relationship between her and Willem. Maybe it’s just because I’m not a big believer in love at first sight (or one day acquaintance). Maybe it’s because Allyson persisted in being in love with him, even though she saw that he was not a one-girl kind of guy. I know a romantic plot line is a big draw for a lot of readers; I enjoy a good romance myself. To me, though, Just One Day could have been just as good – or even better – without the romantic entanglement. A guy doesn’t have to be the catalyst to discover who you want to be.

I can’t come down on this book too hard, though. I did enjoy it, staying up a little past my bedtime to finish it. It certainly does end on a cliffhanger, so be prepared to start counting down the days until the sequel comes out, which looks like it will be told from Willem’s point of view. In the meantime, brush up on your Shakespeare references. If Just One Day is any indication, you’re going to need it!

I am so glad I finally found a weekly event that showcases the books we got from the library. I love libraries! That's the main source of my books (well, the books I read. I have a lot of books upstairs that tend to get neglected). So without further ado, here's my haul from this week!

The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow by Rita Leganski (The premise of this book just sounds so intriguing)
Prisoners in the Palace by Michaela MacColl (I love Queen Victoria)
Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen (An author recommended by my sister-in-law)
The Menagerie by Tui Sutherland (Unicorns and dragons!)
One for the Books by Joe Queenan (A book about books - one of the best kinds)

Xingu by Edith Wharton (I needed a title that started with X for my alphabet challenge)
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel (From the cover blurb, it sounds like magical realism - one of my new favorite genres)
Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote (I watched the movie for the first time on the plane ride home from London. How could I not know that it was first a book?)
Julie and Romeo by Jeanne Ray (Because my name is in the title!)
The J.M. Barrie Ladies Swimming Society by Barbara J. Zitwer (Really, who could resist a title like that?)
Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo (This is the second book in her Grisha series. I should have checked it out in my last library trip, when I checked out the first book, Shadow and Bone. Instead, I had to wait three whole weeks to get my hands on the sequel!)

Here's what Bout of Books is all about: The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, August 19th and runs through Sunday, August 25th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 8.0 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team

I am so excited for this - my very first read-a-thon ever! I just started blogging in June, and I'm still discovering all the wonders of the book blogging world. It's great that this read-a-thon is low-pressure. There's only two and a half weeks until school starts, and I have so much to do! I'm all prepared with books to read. I just went to the library today (okay, three libraries). Just when my stack of library books got manageable, I loaded it up again. Got to take advantage of these last few weeks of summer, right? And a read-a-thon is the perfect way to do that!

Turns out A Forthcoming Wizard is actually a sequel. I picked it up at the library because the title intrigued me. There wasn’t really anything in the cover blurb that told me it was a sequel. But as soon as I started reading it, it was pretty clear that it picked up right where the first book must have left off.

In An Unexpected Apprentice and A Forthcoming Wizard Jody Lynn Nye has created a fascinating world. Only humans and elves are “original” species. Everything else, from werewolves to centaurs to halflings, has been created by the Makers, powerful wizards that lived thousands of years ago. The Makers then put the reality of the world into a book called the Compendium. The book reflects reality so much that if something is changed in it, that same thing is also changed in the world. This naturally makes the book intensely desirable for all sorts of people, wizards and otherwise.

As far as I can tell, An Unexpected Apprentice, the first book in the series, covers the stealing of the book by a wizard named Nemeth, and everything the good guys went through to get it back. A Forthcoming Wizard follows the journey to return the book to safety. The bad guys aren’t gone, though, and there are a couple of warring factions that would like the book for their very own. The book’s protector is halfling Tildi Summerbee. She’s the only one that doesn’t get burned by touching the book, due to owning a piece of copy of it as a child. She and her protectors are traveling south, accompanied by the Scholardom – a group originally created to protect and study the book, but whose aims have gone far astray.

I enjoyed the story. The events were intriguing enough to keep me interested and keep me guessing how the good guys would win in the end (because of course they would; there was never any doubt of that). The characters also caught my interest, especially little Tildi – a homebody halfling suddenly thrown into events that could (and did) change her world. It was really the world that drew me in the most, though. The idea of species created by the Makers is fascinating. Can you imagine the power to create a whole new species? It also created a hierarchy, though. Were the created species equal to the “natural” species? What if someone felt that things should return to the way they originally were? Do they have the right to un-create species? Nye explores these issues to a certain extent. I would have been happy if she had gone even further and explored even deeper.

As a former fantasy devotee, I did enjoy this book. I probably would have enjoyed it even more in high school, at the peak of my fantasy devotion. As an adult, I saw how Nye could have expanded her themes to include even more of a message, but I also saw how the story and the world provided an escape from this world’s reality. I just may find the first book in the series now and see how it all began.

This weekly meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

My plan succeeded! I read almost a book a day last week, and my library books will be ready to return on Wednesday. If I finish this last one, that is. . . Looks like I'll have lots of time to read this morning while I'm waiting for the drywall people to show up!

Words Spoken True by Ann H. Gabhart - Review
My sign-up post for two more alphabet reading challenges (If you're already doing one, why not three?)
Inheritance by Christopher Paolini - Review
Saturday Snapshot (If you're a Harry Potter fan, you should check this out.)

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
Every Day by David Levithan
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
The Little Women Letters by Gabrielle Donnelly

Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, & the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright (Scientology is seriously weird.)

The House at the End of Hope Street by Menna van Praag (I've heard this described as a cross between Sarah Addison Allen and Jasper Fforde, and I can't wait to read it!)
Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library by Chris Grabenstein

On our trip to London this summer, we visited King's Cross train station, which just happens to have a sign for Platform 9 3/4. It's on a random wall out in the station, not between Platforms 9 and 10. When I visited London eight years ago, it was on a wall by the train tracks, and there was no one around. Now, there is a line to have your picture taken by a professional photographer, who poses you with a scarf (you get to pick your house) running with the trolley halfway through the wall. We didn't wait in line for the official (and I'm sure, expensive) picture. We just snatched our own when we could.

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by West Metro Mommy.

I first picked up Eragon when I was already past my fantasy reading stage, which had encompassed most of high school. It had been enthusiastically recommended to me, so I decided to give it a try.

The story of Eragon and his dragon Saphira spans four books, beginning with the hatching of Saphira and ending with Eragon and his companions taking on the evil emperor of Alegaesia. I finished the fourth book earlier this year, reading them at my leisure whenever I was able to get ahold of the next book. It has taken me seven years to complete the series, and every book was borrowed from a former student (spread the love of reading!).

I can unequivocally say that Christopher Paolini’s books have improved as the series has progressed. I approached them with a solid foundation of fantasy reading, which meant that my enjoyment of Eragon consisted of picking out the different elements he “borrowed” from various fantasy series. As a former devotee of Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series, I couldn’t help but notice the similarities. By the time Paolini wrote Inheritance, he had done much to make the world his own. Inheritance shows a great deal of originality in his treatment of magic and the various species that inherit Alagaesia.

Inheritance was difficult for me to get into. Battle scenes have never been the reason why I read fantasy. I typically avoid them as much as possible. If the same is true for you, then don’t judge Inheritance until you are past the first third of the book. Actually, you can skip the first third without any detriment to your understanding of the rest of the plot.

All in all, the Inheritance cycle is an impressive accomplishment for such a young author. The characters are mostly well-developed, the plotline is gripping, and the world appears to be as complex as Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Whatever Paolini tackles next, whether inside or outside of Alagaesia, it is sure to be another exciting tale.

I joined an A to Z Reading Challenge way back in June. This week, I discovered two other blogs that are doing an A to Z reading challenge as well! I'm always game for joining more challenges, especially since I'm not too far away from finishing this one. Check out my Reading Challenges page to see how I'm doing!