One of my goals this year was do to a monthly round-up each month. Aaaaand then I didn’t. So to catch up, BOOM! 3 for 1 offer! Three months in one post.
On the blog
@deargeekplace, @imyril & @joriestory organized Wyrd & Wonder, a month-long celebration of the fantastical, and I had a lot of fun participating.
- Wyrd & Wonder Plans, Flowchart, May TBR and r/Fantasy Virtual Con things
- Wyrd & Wonder: 23 under-rated books that I love
- Wyrd & Wonder: A friend in need
- Some of my unique r/fantasy bingo reads, and why you should try them
- Wyrd & Wonder: Book rainbow – a few LGBT+ recs
These 3 months weren’t that great for posting reviews though, but the ones I did manage to post were of some awesome books:
- The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
- Mini-reviews novella reviews (1): Of Dragons, Feasts and Murder, The Empress of Salt and Fortune, A Dead Djinn in Cairo and This Is How You Lose the Time War (just to be clear these are reviews I put that twice in the title, derp)
- We Ride the Storm by Devin Madson
- Swashbuckling cats – edited by Rhonda Parrish
- Murderbot – Network Effect by Martha Wells
- 4 Shortish reviews that are completely random: The Magpie Lord, The Girl Who Married a Skull, Reaper Man, Howl’s Moving Castle
Top Ten Tuesday continues to be one of my favourite memes because I love lists!
- Top Ten Tuesday: Women in SFF
- Top Ten Tuesday: Reasons I love fantasy
- Top Ten Tuesday – Fantasy Opening Lines
- Top Ten Tuesday: Series I’d like to catch up on
Happy blogiversary to me! At the end of July, I celebrated my blog’s 1 year birthday with a small giveaway on the blog and on reddit. One year blogiversary giveaway! (now closed)
Reading!
Happy to report that reading went a lot better than writing. I’m at 22/25 done with bingo and I had a whole long weekend of mad Hugo reading.
I read 14 novels. As per usual I can’t pick one favorite, but The House in the Cerulean Sea was comfy cozy and perfect, We Ride the Storm was wild on a reread, Riverland was a huge surprise to me about how tough modern MG is, A Blade so Black was great fun and it made a feel kinda old cause I related more to the mum than the YA MC, Stormsong had such good plot and pacing, The Unspoken Name had great necromancy and a sweet lil sapphic romance, Dragon Pearl was such a great mix of fantasy and sci fi.
Covers: Dragon Pearl, Network Effect, Catfishing on Catnet, The House in the Cerulean Sea, The Unspoken Name, Howl’s Moving Castle, Queen of The Conquered, The Blue Sword, Lirael, Fred the Vampire Accountant, A Blade So Black, Stormsong, We Ride the Storm, Riverland
For the Hugo’s I read 6 short stories, 6 novelettes, 6 graphic novels, 3 novellas and 16 novel excerpts in one weekend. Then finished 3 of those novels over the next few days.
So thanks to the Hugos, and not just that, I’ve had a great time with short fiction. Novellas are my new best friend. I had ARCs of Swashbuckling Cats and Of Dragons, Feasts and Murder and they were both great and I loved them. I also unreservedly loved This Is How You Lose the Time War, The Deep, Silver in the Wood, The Haunting of Tram Car 015, A Dead Djinn in Cairo, The Empress of Salt and Fortune and ofc Of Dragons, Feasts and Murder. So yeah that’s 7/7 for novellas that I loved. I also really loved Mooncakes, Emergency Skin and LaGuardia, and a bunch of other short works that I didn’t find cover pictures for (I’ll be posting a little mini-reviews post for the Hugo short stories and novelettes)
Covers: The Haunting of Tram Car 015, The Archronology of Love, Swashbuckling Cats, Silver in the Wood, A Dead Djinn in Cairo, Of Dragons, Feasts and Murder, The Wicked + The Divine, LaGuardia, For He Can Creep, Mooncakes, The Empress of Salt and Fortune, This is How You Lose the Time War, The Deep, Emergency Skin, Die Vol1, Paper Girls
Read what you already own? On pause
At the end of April, I realized this might not be the best year to stop supporting authors by buying books. So I made a list of recent releases and bought a few. Then I noticed how white my list was and bought a few more books. I’m happy that I did a good job of reading what I’ve bought soon after buying – 15 out of 32 -(such a novel idea right?). Well I’m counting We Ride the Storm as read, though I bought the paperback and audio and only read the paper and listened to a bit of the audio (I’ll be rereading before book 2). I will be going back to reading what I own for August, except for maybe book club pics. I also got a tonne of ebooks in the Hugo voting packet, which I don’t know how to count so I’m just not counting them at all in this section. Of the 4 previously owned novels I read I think only one of them was really previously owned, so bought before 2020, the rest were in March-April, when I only bought 2 books per month.
Audiobooks, read:
Covers: The Deep, A Blade so Black, House in the Cerulean Sea, A Dead Djinn in Cairo, Queen of the Conquered, We Ride the Storm, Rosewater, The Blue Sword, Network Effect
Audiobooks, unread:
Covers: Lightless, A Song Below Water, The Relentless Moon, The City We Became, Song of Blood & Stone
I’ve been having a weird slump where I can’t stand to read much on my kindle, so less bought and less read there. I’ve only read 3 of my kindle purchases, but they’ve all been great (Swashbuckling Cats, Empress of Salt and Fortune, The Haunting of Tram Car 015) (I know I said I had an ARC of cats, but then I went and bought it too which is why it shows up here)
Covers: Blade’s Edge, A Ghostly Request, Minor Mage, Penric’s Demon, Where Shadows Lie, The Haunting of Tram Car 015, The Empress of Salt and Fortune, Swashbuckling Cats, Dread Nation
For paperbacks I’ve read 3 out of 8 (first 3 to the right), which I’m pretty happy with, and I’m starting The Arrows Trilogy today, so almost halfsies.
Books: The Unspoken Name, We Ride the Storm, Dragon Pearl, The Complete Arrows Trilogy, All the Birds in the Sky, Thorn, Tenebre: Miercuri, Ultimul Avanpost
I also ignored my beginning of the year resolution to do a round-up in my journal, so to catch up I went and tried to cram everything on a single spread
I’m linking up with The Monthly Wrap-Up Round-Up, hosted by Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction and Shannon @ It Starts at Midnight.
Looks like you had a fantastic three months! I just bought two P. Dijeli Clark books and I can’t wait to read them😁
I hope you like them! I’m planning to try his Black God’s Drums too
That’s a lot of great reading! Happy Blogiversary to you too!
Thank you!
First of all your journal looks amazing! Second, the last three months, or has it been four or five now? have all been crazy! But it looks like you got some good books read! I’m always pushing A Blade So Black because the author graduated from the school where I am a librarian. Of course it was about 10 years or so before I actually started there, but still. Hopefully August goes better for all of us!
Lisa Loves Literature
That’s really cool! I don’t think anyone really famous went to my high school
This whole year time is just refusing to make any sense, here’s to August being better!
Happy blogiversary! I loved The Relentless Moon. Check out what I read at Girl Who Reads.
Thank you! I still havent started Relentless Moon but might go for it next
I love The Wicked + The Divine graphic novel series – I think I have two more to read. I also really want to read The House on the Cerulean Sea so I’m glad you enjoyed that one. Sounds like you had a really nice reading month(s). lol
-Lauren
It was really good, I’ll be reading more into the series for sure, such a great concept & art!
Looks like a great 3 months! As bloggers, we can’t do everything and I think you kept your focus where it needed to be.
I was trying to reduce my TBR and catch up on series this year, so I understand your feeling about still wanting to help out authors this year. Remember, every time we post a review on Goodreads or a retail site we are helping.
Hope you have a great August.
Thank you!
I wish amazon weren’t so fussy about reviews, half the time I forget to post and the rest of the time it doesn’t like something about my review
Congratulations on your Blogoversary! You had a great reading month and now I really want to read T.J. Klune’s novel even more.
You should read Cerulean, it’s such a good book for this hellish year