SUMMARY: july

It’s been an increasingly busy month for me, so unfortunately I barely got to read anything in July. This month was a combination of “my interesting ARCs are too long and I don’t have the patience,” “my short ARCs aren’t very intriguing right now”, and “being too exhausted to read” that culminated in me not being able to read. I’ll have to get used to this and strike a balance so I’ll be able to read in general, but I am reading two books right now! This month, I read 8 books in total.

In case you missed it, I announced a short hiatus for the next two weeks. I actually would love for it to be longer but I need to start posting reviews for my later August releases…See you in 2 weeks!

SUMMARY: june

June has been a whirlwind month, and I’m sad to see it end. Somehow, I got my reading motivation up, including my ability to reread books. I’m slowly trying to reread more, just because I need to open more physical books to limit my screen time. I managed to read a whopping 18 books this month, beating the “Michelle can only read 13-15 books a month” allegations!

SUMMARY: may

May was a great month for me in that most of I got my reading motivation back! Unfortunately though, I didn’t always have time to actually, you know, read. Since my classes ended, I had to catch up on sooo many blog posts, namely the 2022 LGBTQ+ YA releases post (I’ve estimated that I’ve spent about 30 hours total on this post and I’m not exaggerating) that’s up tomorrow. I had a new slew of ARC approvals and library holds come in, so hopefully this motivation will stick around for all of June! I managed to read 14 books in May; see all of them and more in my wrap-up post below!

SUMMARY: april

Even though April is usually full of deadlines, I felt like this past month was especially busy for me. I read a lot of decent reads this month, but that’s left me a bit discouraged. I think I’ll try to reread some books I loved for a bit before I jump back into my ARCs because the thought of starting anything new sounds boring. I managed to read 14 books this month and hope to read more in May (although I really need to catch up on writing/updating blog posts)!

SUMMARY: march

March was a busy month for me, schoolwork-wise, and I didn’t get to read as much as I wanted to during spring break. I’ve also been watching soooo much TV lately (currently juggling three different K-dramas lol). I read 13 books this month, with some new instant favorites!

And a new addition to my monthly summary posts: monthly playlists of songs I’ve been listening to on repeat! I’m just a bit bored and decided this is how I can add a little more personality to these posts. (I also retroactively added playlists to the summary posts for January and February.)

DISCUSSION: five years of magical reads

Okay, I know that I am always like “HOW has it been x years since y thing” about pretty much everything (time is fake, okay??), but seriously, five years of my blog seems particularly unreal to me. For one thing, the past two years have really seemed like a time-wash, despite everything I’ve done here. Five years also just inherently feels like an important and special milestone, one that I’ve never thought about reaching, so I can’t believe I’ve been regularly posting on this blog for so long.

Like last year’s post, I decided to do a Q&A post again! I got fewer questions this time, which is fine because I didn’t have time to write this post until late. Thank you to everyone who sent in questions! I had a lot of fun answering them (and of course, managed to bring BTS and TXT into it as expected). I also shared my favorite posts from the past year as usual and decided to share my favorite posts that I’ve written over the past five years too since it’s a special blogiversary this year! Check out all of this below.

SUMMARY: february

I knew February was not going to be a good reading month when I read like 3 books in the entire first week…not for lack of trying but also I definitely had time to read more so. I feel like I’m also just not feeling many releases, so maybe I should start rereading things again if only I ever felt like doing that :(. Anyways, I read 12 books this month. Also, it’s my fifth blogiversary this month; I’ll be doing another Q&A, so please ask me questions in the form below!

SUMMARY: january

Typically, my Januarys start off SO strong for my reading challenge (like. 18+ books), but as you may expect, it didn’t turn out that way this year. That’s fine though! I managed to read 15 books in January, and I read a lot of ARCs too so we’ll call that a win.

LIST: best books of 2021

How is it the last day of 2021? This year has alternately been the longest and the shortest year ever, and coincidentally the first year in at least 6 or 7 years that I haven’t read more books than the previous year. It was pretty obvious back in September or October that I wouldn’t achieve this yearly goal, so I’ve more or less accepted it. Still, I managed to read 177 books this year, and here are (almost) all of the books I’ve read, not including the rereads!

If you want to know about the books that emotionally wrecked me, here is that list. I also wrote a list of disappointments, dnfs, and surprises from this year. Other stats for this year is that I read 121 books for the first time that I rated at least 3.5 stars! This year, I reread fewer books than usual, which probably contributed to my reading fewer books in general this year.

SUMMARY: december

I meant to read soooo much in December and then…just simply didn’t. Truthfully, though, the end of the month was so busy for me with the holidays, and I didn’t have as much time as I anticipated. Still, I managed to read 15 books this month, which puts me at 177 books for the year (so far). (I forgot to add a poetry collection I read in April, if you noticed the discrepancy between this count and last month’s. Also finished the last book after midnight on the 31st, so technically the next day BUT goodreads still shelved it as 2021 so I’ll take it.)