Monthly Wrap-Up: May 2017

Have a blessed Memorial Day! It’s also Ramadan, so for those of you who celebrate it: Ramadan Mubarak!

This has been a busy month. My five-year blogoversary came around at the start of the month, and I commemorated it with the Blogger Stats Book Tag. The school year has also ended. I’ve also reorganized my shelves.

Book Reviews

• Symptoms of Being Human by Jeff Garvin: 3.5/5 Stars
• Spinner of Secrets by Annie Louise Twitchell | eARC: 1/5 Stars
• One Thousand and One Nights, Vol. 1 by Jeon Jin-Seok and Han Seung-Hee: 4/5 Stars
• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood: 5/5 Stars

As far as reviews go this month, I unintentionally went for a theme of examining gender equality.

Currently Reading

I’m currently reading Seven Deadlies: A Cautionary Tale, by Gigi Levangie, which is about a high-achieving high school student who is now babysitting teenagers. Technically, I’m still reading Outlander, but I’m putting it aside for the moment.

Memes

• Six Degrees of Separation from The Slap to City of Bones
• Book Traveling Thursdays: Book That Originally Had a Red Cover
• Book Traveling Thursdays: The Handmaid’s Tale

Discussion Posts

I wrote one discussion post for the month. My eighth post for the Book Blog Discussion Challenge asks, “Do Book Awards Matter?” Of course book awards matter to the author and publisher, but I want to know if they matter when you’re a book blogger.

Reading Challenges

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 34/60

I’m more than halfway through the challenge, and it’s not even June!

Pages Read Challenge: 8,254/17,000

I’m about halfway through the challenge, which is on track for the start of June.

Back to the Classics Challenge: 3/6

The number did not change on this one, but I finally published a review for one of the books.

Banned/Challenged Books Reading Challenge: 5/13

The number also did not change.

Graphic Novel Reading Challenge: 5/12

One Thousand and One Nights, Vol. 1, by Jeon Jin-Seok and Han Seung-Hee counts for this one.

Library Love Challenge: 12/12

I read three more library books this month: The Princess Saves Herself in This One by Amanda Lovelace, Rites of Passage by Joy N. Hensley, and Piecing Me Together by Renée Watson. All were great books, and I hope to get the reviews for them posted in June.

I’m currently at the Dewey Decimal level. I’m going to challenge myself to hit the next level. The next level is Thrifty Reader (24 books).

Picture Book Reading Challenge: 5/20

7. a book with human characters – The Dunderheads by Paul Fleischman, illustrated by David Roberts

Miss Breakbone hates kids, especially the dunderheads in her class. When Miss Breakbone confiscates Junkyard’s find, the dunderheads band together and teach her a lesson through incredible teamwork. This would be a hilarious book for kids. It reminds me of Matilda rescuing her classmates from Miss Trunchbull.

Operation Deepen Faith

This challenge was to encourage me to read the entire bible in one year. We are halfway through the year, and I only read a few chapters of Genesis. I don’t see this getting better, and I’m thinking about giving up for this year. I’m planning on taking a course about the Bible in the Fall, so I will revise whether or not I’m going to continue this challenge then.

Reading Challenge Addict: 1/11

Since I completed the Library Love Challenge, I am counting this as one challenge completed. I am at the Easy as Pie level.

Interesting Finds

Since I am thinking about English graduate school, I look for articles about the field. Krysta @ Pages Unbound wrote about why it is so difficult to get accepted into an English graduate program.

I love Peter Pan, so I was excited to find that Jen Campbell analyzed the novel and play. She gets into the history of the book and play and then analyzes themes and characters. For example, she proposes that Wendy’s mother knew Peter Pan when she was a girl and suppressed the memory.

Emily at Loony Literate examines privilege and Bookstagram, particularly what seems to be necessary to be popular.

Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction shared what you need to know before you open a NetGalley account. Even if you already have a NetGalley account like I do, Nicole’s post provides some information that you might find helpful.

I, like many book bloggers, participate in book tags. One necessary action when it comes to tagging people into these tags is to get the pingback so that the blogger will see that they are tagged. Jackie @ Too Much of a Book Nerd wrote a how-to post about tagging people and getting pingbacks.

Have you ever thought about the types of books your favorite characters would read? Mandy @ Book Princess Reviews listed the YA books Princess Jasmine would be reading today. She has also made lists for other Disney Princesses.

>^..^<

Thank you, as always, to everyone who follows, reads, likes and comments on my posts. You have helped this be a great month.