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Welcome to the Sunday Post, a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Reviewer to share weekly news and updates on what we’ve been up to on our blog, with our books, and book-related happenings.
The Day We Find Love Once Again
I won’t be doing a Sunday Post next week because a friend of mine will be visiting during the weekend and I probably won’t be able to get on the computer. The good news is that I’ll probably have a lot more to share on my Sunday Post the week after! I’ll miss you all next week though.
Last week was mostly uneventful except for a wonderful time spent downtown with the husband the one day the weather was nice. We visited a few old haunts, a bookshop, and tried a new restaurant. We got the chicken wings platter, a salad, and onion rings. Everything was delicious, but it was ridiculously overpriced and I’m not sure if it’s worth the price. It was still a very nice date, though!
I’m still getting used to the walking desk and being on the treadmill while I’m on the computer. I realized that I haven’t been spending as much time working on the computer because I’m trying to avoid the motion sickness, but it’s good because I still have to use the computer and it forces me to be more mindful of what I’m doing on the computer and how much time I spend on it while also getting in some exercise when I’m on it. Win-win-win, right?
All the happy things:
So happy that the audiobook for Funny Story by Emily Henry is finally available to borrow! I have been waiting and anticipating so long!!
Not sure if it counts because I was going to write it after the fact and not before, but I’m very happily anticipating my friend’s visit!
I was able to spend some time crocheting and I finished a couple of small projects! They’re in the wash right now, but I’ll post pictures next week (the week after)!
The Books
Books I read last week:
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou – It’s a short book, but powerful, and painful at parts. I’ve been wanting to read it for a while and I’m glad I finally did!
Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie – This is the second book in The First Law Trilogy, and it’s been such an immersive experience. I’d love to immediately move on to the third book but I’m waiting on my reading buddies to get their copies.
Books I’m reading:
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver – I’m at 80% of the audiobook and really loving it. I haven’t read David Copperfield so I had no idea what to expect. I’m also looking forward to reading David Copperfield soon after.
Funny Story by Emily Henry – I’ve got the ebook but I’ve been waiting for the audiobook because Julia Whelan narrates it and I love her! I finally got the audiobook today and I’ve started listening despite not having finished Demon Copperhead yet!
I’m not expecting to be able to read much this week since my friend will be visiting, but I’m hoping to finish Demon Copperhead and Funny Story for sure, and maybe a couple of shorter, easy reads. Any recommendations?
How was your week? I hope you had a great week last week, and I hope you have a great one again this week!
It’s Time Travel Thursday! Hosted by Emily @ Budget Tales Book Blog, this is where you get to take a look back at what you were reading this time last year (or the year before or the year before that…) and get to relive those bookish memories!
This time in 2023 I was reading:
The Book of Koli by M.R. Carey
My thoughts:
I started and stopped reading this book so many times because it was quite difficult to get into in the beginning, but I kept trying because a friend whose book recommendations I trust gushed about it so much. Once I finally got into it, I was *in* it. It was so hard to put the book down and I just needed to know what happens next. I love that there were so many interesting elements to the story, like the sentient, carnivorous trees, and the tech that is way more advanced than what we know. I found the interpersonal relationships fascinating, their beliefs and way of life, the way they learned – the tech, the intrigue, how things worked. There’s so much to this book, on so many levels! I love it!
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
This time in 2022 I was reading:
Book Lovers by Emily Henry
My thoughts:
Such a fun romantic read! I like that this one is a bit different, but I also got a bit annoyed with the lack of communication about Charlie not moving back to the city and not just straight up telling Nora. Libby’s lack of communication was also very annoying. I do like the push-pull and sexual tension with Nora and Charlie. It was written so well! I’ve read a few Emily Henry books and I’ve always enjoyed them. They’re just really easy to read and fun.
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
This time in 2021 I was reading:
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
My thoughts:
It has been a while since I watched the movie so there are a lot of details I’ve forgotten and can’t compare with the book. However, I really enjoyed the book itself – the telling of it and the way everything unfolded. There were moments of frustration and disbelief, and definitely also fear and wonder.
There’s a lot of details about the dinosaurs that I feel like we now take for granted because Jurassic Park has been in our pop culture for quite a while now, but I can’t help but wonder, if I was reading it for the first time in the time it was written, would I be asking more questions about the characteristics of the dinosaurs? Would I be more curious and skeptical about their behaviors?
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
This time in 2020 I was reading:
A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas
My thoughts:
I really enjoyed this book and series. Charlotte “Sherlock” Holmes is definitely not what I expected but I love her, and I love the whole concept of how Sherlock came to be because of her character needing to carve out a living for herself. I read up to book 5, if I’m not mistaken, but I haven’t read the latest books so perhaps it’s time to catch up and reacquaint myself with Charlotte.
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
Overall Comparisons
All 4 stars and above! I was having a great time this time in the years before. Once again, I love that they are all such different books and yet I enjoyed them all. It’s also fun to revisit because I remember really loving The Book of Koli and the other books in the series, as well as the Charlotte Holmes series.
I am currently reading The First Law series and loving it so far, so I believe it will be fun to look back on this time again next year and add another series I love to the list!
Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them? What were you reading at this time in history?
Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide. Her life story is told in the documentary film And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS’s American Masters.
Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide.
Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local “powhitetrash.” At eight years old and back at her mother’s side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age—and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors (“I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare”) will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned.
Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read.
This has been on my TBR forever and it was available on audio, so I decided to finally read it.
The Quotes
“Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between.”
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
“Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning.”
“Without willing it, I had gone from being ignorant of being ignorant to being aware of being aware. And the worst part of my awareness was that I didn’t know what I was aware of. I knew I knew very little, but I was certain that the things I had yet to learn wouldn’t be taught to me at George Washington High School. ”
“Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off you.”
The Narrator(s)
Read by the author herself. I always love it when the author narrates, because you can hear the inflections and emphasis in the places they meant them. She also sings the verses, and they were beautiful to hear.
My Thoughts
This is one of those books that come highly recommended and that you hear referenced all the time. I’ve been meaning to read it for a long time because of hearing so much about it, but I had no idea what I was in for. I’d expected it to be deep and meaningful just from all the references about it, and having an idea of what life must have been like for a black woman in those days, but I have a long way to go for learning and understanding it.
My Feels
I don’t know how Maya Angelou managed to write about her painful and defining moments in such a beautiful and lyrical way. I have no words to describe the feelings, but there were parts I had to stop and just take time to process. This is such a powerful book.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
A novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.
Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal–an experience that shocks him to his core.
Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She’s traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive’s best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him.
When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.
A virtuoso performance that is as human and tender as it is intellectually playful, Sea of Tranquility is a novel of time travel and metaphysics that precisely captures the reality of our current moment.’
This is my in-person book club’s May BOTM pick. However, I did borrow it from the library on audio before it was confirmed as the BOTM, just because it was available and I’d been wanting to read it.
The Quotes
“If definitive proof emerges that we’re living in a simulation, the correct response to that news will be So what. A life lived in a simulation is still a life.”
“This is the strange lesson of living in a pandemic: life can be tranquil in the face of death.”
“What you have to understand is that bureaucracy is an organism, and the prime goal of every organism is self-protection. Bureaucracy exists to protect itself.”
“Perhaps we believe on some level that if the world were to end and be remade, if some unthinkable catastrophe were to occur, then perhaps we might be remade too, perhaps into better, more heroic, more honorable people.”
The Narrator(s)
John Lee, Dylan Moore, Arthur Morey, Kirsten Potter. I had a really hard time listening to John Lee’s narration of his part of the book. I don’t know if it was the recording or the accent, or some other factor. I didn’t have the same problem with the other narrators. I could hear them all clearly.
My Thoughts
I didn’t know what to expect going in, especially since when looking at the different parts of the book, they were separated by such huge time gaps. I should’ve realized that it would turn out to be a time travel story. All of the different parts of the book and the different characters’ stories felt like very interesting slice of life stories. I love how they all connected, and I loved how the story was told. It’s not thrilling or exciting in the way most time travel stories usually are, but it was thrilling and exciting in its own way.
My Feels
There was some discussion about how Olive’s story in the book was a self-insert by the author; the questions asked of her as she went on her book tour, the sexism on being a woman writer away from her child while her husband stayed home to “babysit”. In the book it was 2203 when it happened, but it resonates because things are happening in our current times that make me feel like we might be going backwards. It’s scary and maddening.
Other than that, I always enjoy time travel stories and how different ones have different ways to explain the time travel paradox. I like how it was handled here, and I’ll always believe in the possibility of it.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
The New York Times bestselling author of Better and Complications reveals the surprising power of the ordinary checklist
We live in a world of great and increasing complexity, where even the most expert professionals struggle to master the tasks they face. Longer training, ever more advanced technologies—neither seems to prevent grievous errors. But in a hopeful turn, acclaimed surgeon and writer Atul Gawande finds a remedy in the humblest and simplest of techniques: the checklist. First introduced decades ago by the U.S. Air Force, checklists have enabled pilots to fly aircraft of mind-boggling sophistication. Now innovative checklists are being adopted in hospitals around the world, helping doctors and nurses respond to everything from flu epidemics to avalanches. Even in the immensely complex world of surgery, a simple ninety-second variant has cut the rate of fatalities by more than a third.
In riveting stories, Gawande takes us from Austria, where an emergency checklist saved a drowning victim who had spent half an hour underwater, to Michigan, where a cleanliness checklist in intensive care units virtually eliminated a type of deadly hospital infection. He explains how checklists actually work to prompt striking and immediate improvements. And he follows the checklist revolution into fields well beyond medicine, from disaster response to investment banking, skyscraper construction, and businesses of all kinds.
An intellectual adventure in which lives are lost and saved and one simple idea makes a tremendous difference, The Checklist Manifesto is essential reading for anyone working to get things right.
A physician friend recommended this book to me more than 10 years ago. It was available on audiobook when I browsed my library’s catalog so I thought I should finally read it since it’s been on my TBR long enough!
The Quotes
“We don’t like checklists. They can be painstaking. They’re not much fun. But I don’t think the issue here is mere laziness. There’s something deeper, more visceral going on when people walk away not only from saving lives but from making money. It somehow feels beneath us to use a checklist, an embarrassment. It runs counter to deeply held beliefs about how the truly great among us—those we aspire to be—handle situations of high stakes and complexity. The truly great are daring. They improvise. They do not have protocols and checklists. Maybe our idea of heroism needs updating.”
“One essential characteristic of modern life is that we all depend on systems—on assemblages of people or technologies or both—and among our most profound difficulties is making them work.”
“There are good checklists and bad, Boorman explained. Bad checklists are vague and imprecise. They are too long; they are hard to use; they are impractical. They are made by desk jockeys with no awareness of the situations in which they are to be deployed. They treat the people using the tools as dumb and try to spell out every single step. They turn people’s brains off rather than turn them on. Good checklists, on the other hand, are precise. They are efficient, to the point, and easy to use even in the most difficult situations. They do not try to spell out everything—a checklist cannot fly a plane. Instead, they provide reminders of only the most critical and important steps—the ones that even the highly skilled professionals using them could miss. Good checklists are, above all, practical.
The Narrator(s)
John Bedford Lloyd. It was great! He was clear and precise, and easy to follow.
My Thoughts
I thought it was cool that a whole book was dedicated to the importance of having checklists. For the regular layperson like me, checklists are usually just part of the tools I use for convenience and keeping myself organized, and it has also saved me some stress many times, but in aviation, construction, and medicine, it can be the difference between life and death. I think checklists are worth implementing in any situation you can think of though, and I think the book is definitely worth reading.
My Feels
You’d think that reading about checklists as a subject matter could get boring, but it’s surprisingly fascinating. I loved listening to the studies, the examples, and anecdotes of all the times checklists made a difference. In some of these cases, it feels infuriating to me that people refuse to use checklists just because of ego or hubris. If I could, I’d have a checklist for everything in my life to make things so much easier, but absent of that, I think I’ll just do my best to implement it where I can.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly bookish meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl that features a different bookish topic every week.
Today’s topic is May Flowers
I went broad with the topic this week and got as many different varieties of flowers as I could. Not a lot of variety with the genres though, there’s a lot of historical fiction here. I don’t appreciate this topic adding so many new books to my TBR, by the way. 😭
Top Ten Flowery Books
White Chrysanthemum by Mary Lynn Bracht – I’d never heard of this book but it sounds so good and right up my alley. It’s historical fiction about Korea under the Japanese occupation, and there are two timelines. I need this!
One Hundred Daffodils by Rebecca Winn – This is a memoir that I was initially not interested in, but it actually sounds interesting and I can’t help but be curious.
Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – I’ve read only one other book by this author and loved it and have been meaning to read more.
Sunflowers by Sheramy Bundrick – Vincent Van Gogh as a character? I am very, very intrigued. This is fiction but I’m curious to read this fictional account of Van Gogh’s life.
Peony in Love by Lisa See – I have several of the author’s books on my TBR, including this one, and I have yet to read them. I really want to, eventually!
Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee – I always love the story of an underdog taking on the world and coming up on top. I’m not sure if it will end well, but I am taken in by the description.
Under the Magnolias by TI Lowe – This one is set in the 1980s in South Carolina. I don’t necessarily seek out historical fiction, but I find that I do love a lot of them and can’t help wanting to read more!
Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach – The tulip mania has always been a curiosity for me and I’d love to read more about it. This one is also historical fiction.
The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley – Another author with multiple books on my TBR list. I really need to read them some time!
Oleander Girl by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni – This one sounds interesting to me as well. It’s set in India and apparently in the 2000s, but not far enough back to be considered historical fiction I’m sure.
Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them? Would you read any of these books?
Welcome to the Sunday Post, a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Reviewer to share weekly news and updates on what we’ve been up to on our blog, with our books, and book-related happenings.
And I Would Walk 500 More
Last week was a total contrast with the week before, weather-wise. The weather was so nice two weeks ago and I walked so much outside, but last week it rained/snowed pretty much the whole week and I didn’t go outside at all. I did manage to get some exercise indoors though. I paced while reading, and I set up my computer on my walking desk so I was doing blog stuff while on the treadmill too, which is great!
Except that I got a bit of motion sickness and I had to take a lot of breaks.
I had wanted to post more, write some book reviews, but didn’t feel up to it with the motion sickness. I also had a lot to catch up on with replying comments and visiting blogs, and I’m still catching up, but I think I’m getting better doing longer sessions on the treadmill/computer, and I’m sure it will get easier once I get used to it. It’s a chore setting up the computer, so I can’t just switch it out when I get tired of walking and want to sit. I mean, I can, but it’s a whole lot of work. And I want to get used to this because I think it’s better for my health in the long-term.
It’s getting better already, see! I’m writing this post while at my walking desk!
In other news, husband and I finished watching Formula 1: Drive to Survive, and I finished watching Blown Away. We are now watching Physical: 100 Season 2 together, and I’m continuing with my 911 watch.
I also got caught up on laundry, yayyy, but of course it never really ends. And I took a break on cooking last week and husband cooked instead. He sautéed some salmon belly which was simple, but oh so delicious!
All the happy things:
We had our final check-in for The Count of Monte Cristo readalong and had a wonderful discussion that went almost 3 hours!
I managed to finish The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie in time for the book discussion and we had another great discussion for it, plus, I ended up really loving it and now I’m obsessed and have started reading the next book!
I organized my work space – cleared some old papers, threw away stuff I no longer needed. More to go, but it’s a great start.
The bad weather didn’t get me down because I still managed to walk a lot – indoors, but it still counts! I’m getting into the habit of pacing while I read and walking on the treadmill while working on the computer, and honestly, it doesn’t come naturally and I get tired easily, but I’m looking at the long term benefits.
The Books
Books I read last week:
The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande – I thought it was cool that a whole book was dedicated to the importance of having checklists. For the regular layperson like me, checklists are usually just part of the tools I use for convenience and keeping myself organized, and it has also saved me some stress many times, but in aviation, construction, and medicine, it can be the difference between life and death. I think checklists are worth implementing in any situation you can think of though, and I think the book is definitely worth reading.
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton – I didn’t expect such a heavy subject matter, but I think it was an important story to tell and I appreciate the author being vulnerable and telling her story. It’s given me a different perspective about the oil sands industry, and about male-dominated industries in general.
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel – This is my in-person bookclub’s BOTM for May, and I’d usually not read the BOTM so early, but I borrowed the book from the library before it was chosen for the BOTM, and I decided to just go ahead and finish it anyway. I might do a quick recap before the book discussion as a refresher.
The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie – I just finished this book yesterday and I loved it! It was the highlight of the week! I had such an immersive experience reading it, plus having discussions about it immediately after. I’m still processing, or rather, I’m still half in the world of the book and I’ve already started on the next book, so I feel like I’m still immersed. Totally leaning into it!
Books I’m reading:
Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie – Just started but already excited about reading more!
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou – I’m reading this on audio. It’s only 3 hours and I’m already halfway through. It’s breaking my heart a little.
I’m so obsessed with The First Law Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie that I might try to finish the second and third books this week. Let’s see if I can do that!
How was your week? I hope you had a great week last week, and I hope you have a great one again this week!
It’s Time Travel Thursday! Hosted by Emily @ Budget Tales Book Blog, this is where you get to take a look back at what you were reading this time last year (or the year before or the year before that…) and get to relive those bookish memories!
This time in 2023 I was reading:
Happy Place by Emily Henry
My thoughts:
This book gave me all the feels. I love that it’s a different take on fake dating, from the other side of the relationship, which changed a lot of the dynamics. And I love the whole found family aspect of it as well. It made me laugh, it made me cry – both happy and sad tears – because it was also really bittersweet. People change and grow, sometimes they grow apart, sometimes they find a way to grow together. I love that.
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
This time in 2022 I was reading:
Assassin’s Quest by Robin Hobb
My thoughts:
This is the 3rd book in The Farseer Trilogy. I loved the author’s Liveship Traders series, and I wanted to like this series too, but there were some things that happened in this book that I couldn’t get over at the time and I DNF’d the book. I also didn’t like the protagonist very much because he’s so whiny and seems more like an anti-hero, but unlikeable protagonists don’t really bother me in general as long as they are interesting. I may possibly try this again eventually.
My rating: ⭐⭐/5
This time in 2021 I was reading:
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
My thoughts:
There was a chapter that mentioned simplifying and dumbing down the philosophies/concepts being discussed, I think it was titled Life and Death and Quantum something something, and that kind of summarizes the whole book for me.
I like the ideas behind this story, the theme of the book. It’s a story meant to comfort, motivate, inspire, and I think it would have worked very well as a fable. But as a full-length book it was boring, repetitive, preachy… and I felt like I was being talked down to. There were a lot of “wise-sounding quotes” that felt pretentious; the kinds that sound profound but say nothing.
I really wanted to like this book, and I even started out wanting to give it a 3-star rating, but the more I think about it, the less I think I like it, so I’m going with a 2-star rating.
My rating: ⭐⭐/5
This time in 2020 I was reading:
The Institute by Stephen King
My thoughts:
I listened to this one on audiobook. I love most of Stephen King’s works and I especially enjoy the really long books. This one was 19 hours on audio and apparently approx. 800 pages.
It looks like I had some hits and misses at this time in the last few years. They are all also very different books with very different vibes. To be fair, the books with the good ratings were written by two of my go-to authors – Emily Henry, and Stephen King. I’ve only read one other Matt Haig book that I was lukewarm about, and while I loved Robin Hobb’s Liveship Traders, I’ve only read two of her series. I am open to reading more of Robin Hobb though, and trying this one again too.
Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them? What were you reading at this time in the past?
Welcome to the Monthly Wrap Up hosted by Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction to share our monthly wrap-up posts that summarizes our month in books, our favorite books of the month, what we did on our blogs, and anything noteworthy we want to share.
April 2024 Wrap Up
I finished 16 books this month and there were a lot of really good ones! A couple of them were books I started months ago and just happened to finish this month (The Count of Monte Cristo and Blitz). There were a couple of poetry, graphic novels, and short books.
I managed to finished four of my intended TBR, and there was one DNF, but overall I’m happy because I finished the ones with deadlines (book clubs/buddy reads/readalongs) and I can read the others later.
My April 2024 TBR Intentions
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal (DNF)
Fairy Tale by Stephen King
A Fire Endless by Rebecca Ross
Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree
Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett
Oh I don’t like this game anymore! I cannot choose one, there were so many amazing books this month! I’m gonna cheat and go with multiple books; The Way Forward, Bookshops & Bonedust, The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Kite Runner!
2024 Bookish Books Challenge – 4/10 – Started at 3/10 at the beginning of the month. Only read one bookish book this month.
2024 Audiobook Challenge – 25/30 – Started at 16/30 at the beginning of the month. Now I have 5 more to go to hit my target.
2024 Library Love Reading Challenge – 43/60 – Started at 27/36 at the beginning of the month. Since I’ve hit 43, and achieved my original goal of 36 books, I have decided to level up to 60+ books!
The Classics Club – 2/10 – It’s 50 books in 5 years, so I’m aiming for 10 this year.
May 2024 TBR Intentions
I’ve already started on The Blade Itself, and Sea of Tranquility is for my in-person book club for May. Hopefully I’m able to finish as many of the other books as possible.
The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
What Happened to Nina? by Dervla McTeirnan
The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna
The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera
Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson
I’ve been anticipating some of them since the beginning of the year and I’m excited to get to them as soon as I can!
How was your month in April? What were your most memorable moments? I hope you have a wonderful May with lots of great books!
Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly bookish meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl that features a different bookish topic every week.
Today’s topic is Petty Reasons You’ve DNF’d a Book.
I don’t know if I’d call all my reasons “petty”, but some of them are definitely mean! Some of these dnfs happened recently, and some of them are really old dnfs that I don’t even remember – I copy/pasted my thoughts from reviews/notes I wrote.
Top Ten Petty Reasons I’ve DNF’d a Book
Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi – I loved the first book in this series and I really wanted to like this one too, but one of the love interest in this story gave me the ick, and I just couldn’t continue the journey with them. I think I dnf’d around the halfway point.
A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal – I dnf’d this very early, within the first few chapters. The writing was difficult to read and it didn’t keep my interest.
Caraval by Stephanie Garber – I read all the way to 95% of the book, I believe, but I was annoyed with it the whole way and just got angrier and angrier as I read because I expected it to get better and it never did. I can’t say what the final straw was because it’s so close to the end and may be a spoiler, but at that point, I was just done.
Imperial Woman by Pearl S. Buck – I’ve mentioned this book before in Books I Love to Reread; it’s the one book I love that I’ve reread many times but never finished. It counts as a petty dnf for this list, because my reason is that the last few pages just didn’t seem necessary.
Death by Dumpling by Vivien Chien – I dnf’d this once a long time ago, forgot completely about it, came across the series again and thought it sounded fun, tried reading it again, and dnf’d again. I really wanted to love it and get into the whole series, but I don’t think it’s for me. Both times dnf’d early in the book – I went a bit further the second time because I wanted to make more of an effort to like it.
Taking Chances by Molly McAdams – My exact notes were; “Nope, sorry. So bad within the first 50 pages that I don’t even want to waste my time reading the rest of it.”
The Atlas Paradox by Olivie Blake – The characters were messy and unlikeable and inconsistent.
Splintered by A.G. Howard – I love going through my old notes and seeing how mean and petty I was; “I decided not to finish the book. It got really annoying and I really didn’t like the characters much at all.”
Innocent Mage by Karen Miller – “I had high hopes for this book, but the deeper I got into the book, I just started getting bored. Nothing was going on, everything was just telling, not showing. The characters started getting on my nerves, with all the waiting, waiting….”
Alienated by Melissa Landers – “In one word: shallow.”
Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them? Would you read any of these books?
