If you’re a bookworm, you have a Deathstar-sized problem on your hand. A problem that claws at your book-loving soul.

So many books.

So little time to read them.

Seriously, the TBR (for the uninitiated, that means to-be-read) pile multiplies faster than a family of Catholic rabbits. It’s the Mt. Everest of literature. Beautiful. Stunning. Enormous enough to make your eyes pop.

“How can I possibly find enough time to read Every. Single. Book?”

“I’m going to be old and gray and have a Gandalf beard before I even come close to making a dent.”

Because Ringwraiths and Dementors and chivalrous quests…Um. Wait. I meant life.

This is a continual struggle, an endless sorrow for bookworms. No matter how much you read, there’s always more.

As a bookworm myself, I know the pain all too well. Yet we cannot accept this defeat. There is a way, a path that leads to victory.

Summaries!

No, it has nothing to do with the hottest months of the year and the beach (although the beach is never a bad thing). These are the life-saving inventions where you can read an entire book—basically, because it’s brilliant that way—in a couple minutes.

Break out the cake and punch. And a lightsaber.

Besides the convenience, it’s an excellent way to highlight the key parts of a book and have some fun (okay, a lot of fun) at the same time.

Given the ridiculous amount of time people never seem to have available, I’m going for speed in my summaries. Ten sentences per book. Need I even say these will be sci-fi, fantasy, steampunk, all the good stuff? I said it anyway. 😛

Ready? Set the timer and let’s get rolling.

Hunger Games

Mainly, people die. Except the really-really-really important people, since this is only the first book.

A complicated love triangle invades every chapter because isn’t life so much more exciting that way?

Oceans of teenage emotion wash across the pages. Also, crying.

People living in the Capital be crazy, colorful, egocentric loonies. Big governments are oppressive and don’t care about their citizens as long as said citizens stay in line. The Hunger Games are less about food and more about control and terrible things and horrible public entertainment.

Breaking the rules and cheating the system at the very end—you know, because love and all that—is fine, but it comes with repercussions of a decidedly sinister variety. The lovebirds survive the Games, but deep down, a greater issue begins to waken.

The Children of Hurin

If Shakespeare decided to use Middle-earth as a setting, this could well be the result of his tale. A noble man who opposes the enemy is captured, and in punishment, his family is cursed. The curse falls upon his two children, whose lives, thereafter, become a tragedy in a truest sense of the word.

Anything that can go wrong does. Betrayal, sorrow, death, all-around nastiness. Middle-earth history makes repeated entrances. So do elves in their lofty grandeur. Many important events are noted and expounded upon. Someone important dies, but not who you’d think.

In the end, they didn’t live happily ever after.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Let’s find this strange creature that’s been hunting down ships. Whoops, just kidding—it’s a submarine and her crazed captain who was named after a famous Disney fish. Speaking of fish…LOOK AT ALL THE FISH! Let’s categorize them according to species and genus and all that confusing scientific babble, and talk about them in dictionary terminology.

This is a lively adventure hither and yon through oceans and past islands, to many exotic locations including an underground city. BUT LOOK AT THE FISH AND SEA LIFE!!

Oh no, trapped in the ice. Oh no, attacked by a strange creature that hunts down ships (#irony?). LOOK AT THE FISH!!!

Let’s all drown in the gigantic whirlpool of doom, because our captain can’t live with himself and is a madman, only let’s escape before that actually happens.

There you have it. Isn’t that a life-saver? It’s as if you just read three books in a couple minutes. Can anyone say superpower?

Would you like to see more book summaries in the future? What about movie summaries? I’d love to hear your feedback.