May 2022 Wrap Up: hectic!!!

~reading

How many books that I planned did I read?

In my May TBR post, I plotted out 6 books to definitely read, but I had 10 actually on my list to try to get through. Of those ten, I read 7, so not bad! And I also read 7 totally other random books for a total of a mind-boggling fourteen books that I somehow read in May. 🤯

The Plan:

A few of these were in the list to be finished — Around the World in 80 Plants and Dune in particular — with a few new releases / ARCs rounding out the rest (You’ve Changed, Queen of the Tiles, A Hundred Silent Ways, The Lady’s Guide to Fortune-Hunting, The Olympus Trinity).

The Result:

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Yo, let me address Dune right away. I threw that one OUT of my LIFE, and I feel so good about it! That damn book has been HAUNTING me for literally years now! I recently gave myself (and anyone else!) permission to give up on this book, which I don’t usually have an issue doing, but this one stuck to me. Marking it as Attempted/Abandoned was extremely liberating, and I think I went on an absolute tear of reading after in a mixture of a rush of freedom and trying to escape it. 😂

I have since finished Pachinko by Min Jin Lee which was also a slog of a book. That combined with Dune was a tough mix. I dove into some mysticism to escape the monotony with Dragon’s Mage and Dragon’s Protector by Ava Richardson, which yes, are part of a series. ABOUT DRAGONS AND MAGIC! It was just what I needed!

I also squirreled away into some swoony romances with The Lady’s Guide to Fortune-Hunting by Sophie Irwin (LOOK FOR THIS ONE ON JULY 12, IT WAS EXCELLENT) which is absolutely one of my new favorites. 😍 Booked on a Feeling by Jayci Lee (also a July pub for the 26th) was a big-city-goes-small-town second chance romance with lawyers, books, and beer. An eclectic mix that worked so well.

And then I wrapped up the month by combining mysticism with swoony romance and went for Lady and the Vamp by C.C. Wood, which is about a Valkyrie and Vampire who meet on a dating app for non-humans. It’s a short read that was extremely fun and I can’t wait to meet the other characters in the world. ^.^

Posted Reviews:

• Review: Dava Shastri’s Last Day by Kirthana Ramisetti
• Review: Queen of the Tiles by Hanna Alkaf
• ARC Review: We All Fall Down by Rose Szabo
• Review: Dragon’s Mage by Ava Richardson
• Review: Around the World in 80 Plants by Jonathan Drori
• ARC Review: Once Upon a K-Prom by Kat Cho (5/17/22)
• ARC Review: Dear Dana by Amy Weinland Daughters
• ARC Review: Blame It on the Brontes by Annie Sereno (5/3/22)
• ARC Review: How to Be the Best Third Wheel by Loridee De Villa (5/3/22)

~stats

A NEW SECTION THIS MONTH! I put an unnecessary amount of time into creating my own charts and graphs and such of my reading tracker, on top of all the wonderful charts and graphs and data that Storygraph tracks for me. So to showcase that a bit, here’s a little section for all the data people like me out there to drool over. 😍

• My reading was 21% Nonfiction this month (and the remaining 79% fiction).
• My top genres were Romance and Fantasy with 5 books each.
• I mostly read books that were emotional, reflective, or adventurous.
• My average rating was 3.9 stars out of 5. I read a total of 4,584 pages in May.
• I traveled to Malaysia, Philippines, Myanmar, and Los Angeles, USA through my books (plus one that went global!).

~life

May feels like another one of those months where I have no idea what I did in it looking back. The biggest reason for that is working on multiple big projects at work that took up a crazy amount of time and had me working early and late almost every day and sometimes weekends as well. I knew it was temporary and worth it for what we’ll get back from that effort, but daaaang was it tiring. I really don’t think I did much besides eat, sleep, and work for a few weeks in there.

I also got Covid in May, which was my first round with it. I honestly just thought I had a bad cold because the seasonal shift here was wild last month with days going from 10C/50F to 30C/83F within days. Once my boyfriend caught it though and it knocked him on his absolute ass, he did a Covid test and it was — unsurprisingly at that point — positive. He had a lot worse symptoms and I felt pretty bad that I had taken zero precautions when *I* was sick, since I didn’t even think to test for Covid. But anyway, we’re both good now thankfully. It certainly added to how tired I was during all that hectic work, though.

Basically, I’m ready for a bit of a break. Unfortunately I don’t think it’ll be coming in the next month. 😅

~blog

I spent a lot more time than usual blog hopping this month and it has been so much fun. Y’all are lovely. ^.^ I missed some of the Top Ten Tuesday posts that I’ve enjoyed joining in recently because of how freakin’ busy I was, but reading through everyone else’s was delightful anyway.

Remember at all how last month I said, Wow these numbers are crazy they’re far and away the highest ever?

Topped em. 😎🤯

It was also the month of my 3rd year of blogging on this site (May 25th) so whoo and yippee for that! By my own standards I am wildly successful and happy with where I’m at, because ultimately I made this blog for me. I wanted a place to enjoy writing, and to remember some of my thoughts about books. Slowly I started to join more of the community and branch out in my post styles, but I’ve never had the goal of tons of readers or monetization. That would put pressure on something I do for pleasure, which would 100% ruin it. So I’m really happy and excited to continue on. 😊

Here are some of my favorite posts I worked on this month, in case you missed them!

• Meet the Book Blogger Tag!
• Word Origins: when a botanist has a giggle
• Top Ten Tuesday: Quotes from my favorite nonfiction books

And here are some of my favorite posts by other bloggers!

• Mini-Reviews: Finlay Donovan is Killing it & Finlay Donovan Knocks ‘Em Dead by Elle Cosimano by Leslie @ Books are the New Black (if I read these and don’t like them, promise I won’t blame you! 😊)
• Most amazing libraries in the world that I want to visit by Soph @ Soph Reads (more to add to my own lists 😍)
• 7 Blogiversary | The Blogger Stats Book Tag | Blogging Stats by Annemieke @ A Dance with Books (happy anniversary to you too!!)
• BIG EXCITING NEWS – I WROTE A BOOK!!!!! by Michael @ My Comic Relief (CONGRATS!!! And so excited to see Squirrel Girl rep :D)
• Character Names That Mean… // Wednesday Whatevers by Callie @ Callie’s Corner (you know I love that etymology)