May Wrapup: A Good Month For Blogging and Somewhat For Reading

This month has, surprisingly, been really good for reading and just life in general!! I’m super proud of myself because I’ve gotten wayyyyy ahead on my blogging, scheduled out the whole month of June, am participating in 3 blogger projects, and still managing to get everything done in a reasonable amount of time.  I feel like I’m one of those people with crazy productivity that I’m jealous of, and I don’t understand how this is happening.

This month I read 3/5 book on my TBR, and 4 books total.  That’s because I forgot to put a 2nd audiobook on my TBR, so I was held at gunpoint needed to stray from my list. I haven’t posted reviews for any of these books yet, so all of the links will send you to Goodreads.

Kindle/Ebooks

I’ll Give you the Sun (5 STARS)— This book was INCREDIBLE.  I was hooked from page 1, and couldn’t put it down.  I also read this with my mom and we talked about it the whole way through, which made it amazing and gave me different perspectives on the book than I would have had otherwise.

Physical Books

The Roanoke Girls (5 STARS)— This book was so twisted and messed up but I loved it and couldn’t put it down.  It has a lot of triggers so I recommend researching before you read it, but if you can do it, you NEED to.  It will leave you feeling sick and twisted and amazed and wanting more.

Audiobooks

The Orphan Master’s Son (2 STARS, DNF)— Ugh.  I was so excited to read this book when I first heard about it, because I’m semi-obsessed with crazy dictators and what it does to people in a country, and North Korea doesn’t exactly have its own section in the library.  But this just didn’t do it for me.  I think I’ll write a review eventually, but overall my main reasoning is just that it was boring.  I found myself NOT LISTENING for the first time ever, just because cleaning my room was suddenly more interesting than a book.  Which has never in my life happened.

Go Set a Watchman (3 STARS)— Hmmm, this is a tricky one.  I loved this book because I enjoyed hearing about Scout again, since I have such a deep attachment to her and her family, but the story itself just wasn’t that good.  There were tons of 1 second flashbacks that threw me off a little bit, and the whole thing felt sort of forced.  I mean, another white-black court case, for real? and the whole thing with Scout and her boyfriend just didn’t really work for me.  Plus, the Atticus character was so twisted that it wasn’t really Atticus at all.  This isn’t a sequel, persay, since it was written first, and it’s obvious that Harper Lee changed her mind on a lot before TKAM went to print, and you need to take that into consideration.  So, although I loved Scout, the story and the rest of the characters weren’t my favorite, which is why I had to give it just 3 stars.

Goodreads Challenge (17/30)– If you’re confused by the fact that my Goodreads challenge is suddenly out of 30, the reason is that I upped it by 5 since I’m doing so well, and 30 seems far better than 25 as a goal.  I’m hoping to maybe even reach 50, depending on how much I read this summer.

What’s In a Name (2/5)– I can’t believe that it’s taking me so long to read 5 books.  My problem is that I’m not going out of my way to find any of them, and I’m going to need to if I expect to even get close.

Read Harder Challenge (11/24)– I seriously need to put more work into this.  The rest of my categories are all outside of my comfort zone which will be tough to cram into the last few months, so I need to start now.

• I announced the Book Blogger Award Winners, so if you haven’t seen that yet you should make sure you go follow all of the winners!
• As part of Top 5 Wednesday, I wrote about my favorite summer reads
• I was lucky enough to do an author interview with Khalid Talib on the very same day his book came out!
• I wrote a post on @BroodingYAHero one of my all time favorite Twitter personalities
• I published a blurb for an imaginary book that I now sort of want to write

• Mikaela started a Big Blogger, Little Blogger project that is helping bring together 2 sections of the bloggy community!  (And she also wrote a super awesome post about jealousy in the blogging community that made me realize how jealous I am of her)
• Nia (my little blogger) wrote a super awesome post on her favorite retellings
• Mahriya started the Typewriter Project and I’m loving the challenges!
• May wrote a discussion post on the fact that characters are more important than plot, and that opened up a huge discussion, although I think the majority of people agreed with her.
• Kourtni made a list of 10 books to read this summer that is full of amazing recommendations.

Followers

Last month I gave myself a goal of 275 followers, and I KILLED IT.  I’m so happy to say that I now have over 330 followers, which is absolutely incredible considering the fact that I ran my 200 follower giveaway about a month ago.  I’m so thankful to you guys and the fact that you let me feel so good about myself and my writing.

Book Buying

I really wanted to make my bookshelf a little bit bigger this month, because it’s been a long time since I was able to put a new book on the shelf.  Although I didn’t actually buy any books, I book hauled Lola (from LibraryThing) and Vanishing Girls (from Molly, who was kind enough to give away her books and send them to me, and whose blog you should head over and follow asap)

Posting

I wanted to schedule more posts this month, as well as catch up on reviews.  I managed to do just fine scheduling posts and now have a fairly good buffer.  But, I haven’t been writing my reviews and so that’s fairly disappointing.  I want to eventually post reviews in the month that I read the book, but as of right now I’m posting like 2 months behind.

Editing

I really wanted to get a new client for this month, but that has proved impossible, so I’ve failed on this front as well.  If you need an editor or beta reader PLEASE CONTACT ME!! I have time for you 🙂

This month has been a fairly good one for reading, but not so hot for writing and editing.  My blog growth is astronomical, and I’ve almost hit my year goal of 50 views per post, which is making me super excited.  It’s happened on roughly every other post in the past 2 weeks, which means that I AM SO CLOSE.

This was the last full month of high school for my whole life, and it’s basically over.  That’s a weird feeling, and I’m proud of all that I’ve managed to accomplish.

How did May go for you? What books did you finish? Link your wrap up posts so that I can find out!