Only one month behind, so I’m catch up, right?? :-D
May was kind of a crazy month, and I worked a LOT of overtime – not a lot of time left for reading (or cleaning, or resting, or thinking…), so I mostly read a couple of children’s series that I already owned, and then started working my way through some of Dee Henderson’s books.
Favorite May Read:
The Nesting Place by Myquillyn Smith – it’s kind of rare for a nonfiction book to be my favorite read, but Smith’s book was just such a delight and encouragement from beginning to end that I feel like it definitely earns this spot. I actually read this book throughout April and May as I had time, and ended up buying my own copy so I could highlight parts that were important to me, and pull it out again whenever I want. This was just a wonderful book about contentment, making your house your home, and having the courage to let your house reflect yourself and your family.
Most Disappointing May Read:
The Wings of a Falcon by Cynthia Voigt – this book was just really weird. I couldn’t stand the protagonist, who was a total jerk and continued to be a total jerk throughout the entire story. I wasn’t sure what the point of this book was, as it was very long, disjointed, and rambly.
Other May Reads:
- Before I Wake by Dee Henderson – 3/5 – alright, but kind of a weird love triangle. The mystery was good until the ending, which was weak.
- The Extraordinary Education of Nicolas Benedict by Trenton Lee Stewart – 5/5 – a really delightful prequel to the other books.
- Jackaroo by Cynthia Voigt – 3/5 – an alright story with some interesting thinking points, but nothing amazing.
- The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart – 5/5 – this was a (multiple times) reread for me, and I love it more every time. The story is clever and engaging, thought-provoking but not polemic. A genuinely fantastic children’s book.
- The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey by Trenton Lee Stewart – 4/5 – fun and engaging, but not quite as exciting as the first.
- The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner’s Dilemma by Trenton Lee Stewart – 4/5 – lively and interesting, and a solid conclusion to the series.
- On Fortune’s Wheel by Cynthia Voigt – 3/5 – an alright story with some interesting thinking points, but nothing amazing… kind of exactly like Jackaroo.
- The Witness by Dee Henderson – 3/5 – Kind of a meh read that started alright but was definitely more romance than thriller, so it got rather boring in the middle.
In Mays Past…
Now that I’ve been doing my Rearview Mirrors for two years, I thought it would be fun to see what my favorite and least-favorite reads were from those years.
Back in May 2015, my favorite book was one I almost didn’t confess to reading – Forever by Maggie Stiefvater. Because sometimes the teenage werewolf thing is actually done right.
I had a lot of meh reads that month but nothing I really hated. I ended up choosing Girl Missing by Tess Gerritsen, which was completely unmemorable for me – I can’t even remember what I didn’t like.
Last year, I was still blazing through every Agatha Christie book ever printed, and it’s still amazing to me how many of them made it as my favorite book of the month. In May 2016 I read the genuinely brilliant And Then There Were None, one of Christie’s most clever, twisty stories that, despite the fact I had read it multiple times, I read it in one go, staying up until midnight to get to the grand conclusion.
My least favorite book ended up being Todd McCaffrey’s Dragon Harper, which I ranted about at length. After spending a year+ reading through Pern, it was really disappointing to end with his genuinely terrible, boring books.
TBR Update:
So I went through and cleaned this spreadsheet up a bit, mostly sorting books to the tabs where they actually belong (a lot of books on the general TBR were actually series) and getting rid of doubles and whatnot. I also FINALLY caught up on my emails/blog entries. This means that the general TBR took a stunning plummet… but the other tabs took a huge jump…
For those of you who don’t know, I’m weirdly obsessive with organizing the TBR, and have it on a spreadsheet divided into five different tabs:
- Standalones: 780 (down 118! Go me!)
- Nonfiction: 75 (up five)
- Personal (which includes all books I own (fiction and nonfiction), but lists any series I own as only one entry…): 623 (up two)
- Series (each series counted separately, not each book within a series): 220 (up 61 because most of the books that I edited out of the standalones actually moved to either this column or mystery series)
- Mystery Series (each series counted separately, not each book within a series): 102 (up 26)
Still, my editing did give me an overall net loss of 24, which is pretty good for me.
Awaiting Review:
Basically, Dee Henderson:
- Full Disclosure
- Unspoken
- Undetected
- Taken
- Traces of Guilt
- Threads of Suspicion
Plus Reclaiming Christianity by A.W. Tozer, and the Spring (#53) issue of Slightly Foxed.
20 Books of Summer Update:
I’ve read five of my books, and eliminated Sins of the Past (which was actually a collection of novellas instead of an entire Henderson novel), so I’ll be adding a title someday (if I get that far haha).
Approaching the Top of the Pile:
The probable next five reads…
- Watching You by Michael Robotham, which I just started today.
- Close Your Eyes by Michael Robotham, which should wrap up the Joseph O’Laughlin series that I started so long ago Robotham may have actually written another book by now…
- The Secret Keepers by Trenton Lee Stewart
- Girl Out of Water by Laura Silverman
- Sprig Muslin by Georgette Heyer
The Aroma of Books 