and when you need a break...?

It's a scorchingly hot summer across the United States. I can't speak for anyone else but hot summer days make me slightly lackadaisical. The heat just seeps into your bones and slows your brain. Up until this past week I have been fervently reading and scheduling reviews for posts to come starting August up until October.

And then my brain kind of had enough. I burned myself out.

So currently I'm on a novel-reading hiatus. There are two great things about this, for me:

• When I next pick up a novel I will be excited again for the calming structure of literary fiction, for a story that I can more or less read from start to end, reading love for the writing or character or place between every line. It will be marvelous.
• I get to branch out into other things that I love but have been neglecting because sometimes I feel that I have to read only YA to keep up with everything, including my very large TBR pile. Currently I'm reading heaps of Marvel graphic novels and it's truly refreshing to read a different type of story, but a story nonetheless. I can get lost in the artwork of words and pictures. I used to read graphic novels quite a lot, but life interfered, and I'm honestly happy to be doing so again. (I'm just about finished with The Invincible Iron Man Omnibus, Vol. 1 and I'm falling in love with Tony Stark, my favorite Marvel character, all over again. What Matt Fraction does with this character [so far] is amazing, though my heart is shattering continuously.)

What do you guys do when you need a break? Blogging, reading - there's always a lot of pressure, even if most of it is self-imposed. I'd love to know what else you read when you take a bit of a hiatus from YA.

Never fear, friends, I haven't stopped completely. I had also found myself stuck in my WIP and I love to immerse myself in different story types to craft a personality, so that's part of what I'm doing. 

Keep cool, everyone. Ice cubes and tall glasses of water are your friend.