This month was just too much. Who’s been fucking up the rules of time and condensed three months into one?

Work has been so busy. I’m trying a few to new things to increase my productivity and focus. Between that and having a lot of procrastinated stuff left over from last year I’ve been going full speed ahead almost everyday, and feeling drained by the time I got home.

Reading-wise I feel like I haven’t made much progress. Most of the stuff I’ve finished was short, and my currently reading shelf has reached peak out of control levels. I’ve done pretty good wrt reading what I already own, so I’ll be joining the Cheapskate Challenge. I thought I was really behind on reviews, but drafts folder is just 3 files that need a little tweaking, and even while struggling through the molasses of this month I managed to do 5 posts.

Stuff I read

Started off strong with a reread of the The Bone Ships by RJ Barker, probably my favorite audiobook from last year. I wasn’t planning on a reread, but I wanted to refresh my memory a bit while writing my review and only set out to listen for a few minutes. Narration was so good I couldn’t stop.  I got a full review here. I also did a little outfit for Meas and tweeted and RJ said it was the first fanart of her, so that was really cool.

I read Red White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston, and it was every bit as fun and sweet as my friends promised it would be. I love those two idiots. I couldn’t put it down and ended up reading way past my bedtime.

I finished up the available Monstress volumes, so dark but so lovely, I wrote a review here. There are cats, and old gods, and beautiful drawings. (But also war and slavery and everything not nice)

I listened to all the Murderbot novellas and I loved them. That killing machine is way to relateable, and I really enjoyed the small team in a dangerous environment set up. Review to come

My currently reading shelf is trying to kill me

I’m not in a reading slump, just in some sort of weird mood where I keep picking up stuff

We Ride The Storm by Devin Madson came out on kindle on the 28th, and it has 3 extra chapters on the original self-pub version so I’ve started that. I’ll probably read it a lil slower, between my other books.

Queens of the Wyrd by Tamandra Witcastle is great fun and powerful stuff about motherhood, loving it and will probably finish it over the next few days.

I picked up Where Oblivion Lies by T. Frohock just after RWRB for r/fantasy bookclub, but it seemed like more of a change of pace than I was looking for, so put it down till I’m more in the mood.

I picked up A Dragon of A Different Color by Rachel Aaron, then it put away, then picked it up, then put it away. I remember around 20% of the previous books that I read 5 years ago and it is soooo frustrating, but I’ve also been to lazy to look up summaries. I’m almost done, but I’m still very confused about how we got here. I gotta say, it’s pretty hard to care  about Julius’ story in this one when we have Marcy working to save the world.

Picked up Realm of Ash by Tasha Suri after loving Empire of Sand in December, but I was not happy with the change in MC, and not in the right mood for it, I’ll go back to it soon as my internal whining over not getting more Mehr seems to be dying down.

I’ve still not read my short story anthology for r/fantasy bingo, East of a Known Galaxy, I think part of it is that I’ll have to finish up my bingo post when I do, and I’d rather procrastinate that a bit more.

Read what you already own

I bought a lot of lovely books last year, that I was very much looking forward to read, but didn’t get to. So I’m planning to read what I already own, and not buy stuff. I think I did pretty well. I bought 3 ebooks: We Ride the Storm, Delia’s Shadow by Jaime Lee Moyer and Red White and Royal Blue. Got one audible free original, Junkyard Cats by Faith Hunter, and preorder the print version of We Ride the Storm, oh an preordered Lady Griffith’s Second Chance by Quenby Olson  . I also only got one book for review, but I didn’t work up the courage and energy to get on Edelweiss and Netgalley, so not sure if I’m counting that as a win or not. I’m at +11 points on the Cheapskate challenge, if I’m counting old non-credit audible books as owned, which I am.

Review status

My review drafts folder includes: Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri, Murderbot and Beautiful. The ones I managed to post this month were Witchmark, Monstress, The Bone Ships, Unsouled and A Magical Inheritance.

I’m already ahead of my goodreads goal, but since 7/9 read this month are shorts, I think I’m pretty much on my 6/month target. I also wanted to read at least one short thing per month, and I’ve done very well on that count.