Wrapping Up June 2018

We’re in the last week of June, meaning that it’s time for me to wrap up my month and share some interesting things from around the web. It was a better reading month for me.

In April, I shared my nominations for the Annual Book Blogger Awards, hosted by Write Through the Night, and the winners were announced at the start of this month. Congrats to all of the winners!

Here’s a quick list of some of the posts I wrote this month.

• Reviewing Recommended YA Short Stories in Literary Magazines
• Five Thrilling Harry Potter Fanfics by The Fictionist
• Sunshine Blogger Award #2
• 5 YA Books Where Letters Are Important to the Plot
• I gave 5 stars to S.K. Ali’s Saints and Misfits.

I’m reading American Panda by Gloria Chao, Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman, and The Cruel Prince by Holly Black. I’m starting to have technical issues with the audiobooks (the last two in the list), and I’m trying not to lose interest in American Panda because it’s short enough that I want to finish it. I’m not entirely sure about the audiobooks yet.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

I finished reading The Hate U Give a couple months ago, but I finally posted the review this month. This book counted toward the Library Love Challenge, the Young Adult Reading Challenge, and the Platypire Diversity Challenge.

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

This is refreshing for me with respect to YA fantasy, though I didn’t care much for the romance between Inan and Zélie. The review for this audiobook is scheduled to post on Monday.

The Mortal Instruments: The Graphic Novel, Vol. 1 by Cassandra Clare and Cassandra Jean

I read this one over a few hours. While I love the original series, this adaptation of the first part of City of Bones reminded me of my negative thoughts about Alec and Jace. It’s decent for an adaptation. You can find out more of my thoughts in the review I posted last week.

Fanfiction Reading Challenge

I read even more fanfiction this month than I did last month, but I would rather save this for another post. Instead, I will list the Danny Phantom stories I read and the more miscellaneous Harry Potter Stories I read this month.

Someone to Hear Me by Muneca-de-trapo is a Danny Phantom one shot. It’s a mentor fic to the extent that Vlad tries to comfort Danny when the young ghost boy is upset.

I also read Soul Searching by PixieGirl13, which is a horror fanfic. Danny is sent to be a camp counselor at a summer camp, and it turns out that Vlad owns the camp. Something is not right with this camp. All 18 chapters can be read over a few hours, and it had me on the edge of my seat.

I also read The Bone Man by inspiration_assaulted. A three-parter, this story focuses on Harry Potter who has disappeared from the Wizarding World and come back as the Bone Man, a leader of Dementors with creepy powers. While there is some Drarry and Voldemort-as-father elements, the reason I consider this miscellaneous is that it is focused on a very dark and independent Harry Potter.

The Daring Win by Lomonaaeren is a 36-chapter story where Umbridge adopts Harry pre-Hogwarts. I have never read an Umbridge-centered fanfic before, so I was surprised that this makes her a semi-decent (or neutral evil) human being and guardian for Harry. It’s made me curious about trying out more Umbridge fanfics. I also read the one-shot sequel, Journal Entry, but I think it stands as an AU to The Daring Win universe.

The last story is a Remus-raises-Harry-as-a-werewolf fanfic. My Little Cub by shanemagnum is an okay story of Remus getting the chance to raise Harry. I don’t understand how to navigate LiveJournal, but I assume that this is a one shot.

In total, this list adds 60 chapters to the previous 287. As a reminder, there is a linky for April through June where you can share the stories you’ve read or posts where you’ve listed those read stories.

Interesting Finds

To jump from Harry Potter fanfiction to my finds, Aimal @ Bookshelves & Paperbacks started a discussion about writing good villains and anti-heroes with an analysis of Draco Malfoy and Severus Snape. As the post points out, villains are the heroes of their own stories.

Now lets move on to issues of representation. Savannah @ The Book Prophet wrote “An #OwnVoices Discussion on Native American Representation.” She talks about her personal experiences, stereotypes, and misconceptions.

Speaking of #OwnVoices, May @ Forever and Everly talks about the pressure of that label on authors and reviewers. Two of the pressures she talks about is the pressure to reveal your personal life and the pressure to get everything right.

Are you trying to increase traffic to your blog? Dani @ Perspective of a Writer provided a helpful how-to post for pingbacks, using your Twitter handle in sharing buttons, and your WordPress links.

The What’s Hot? Blog posted an opinion that book bloggers and Bookstagrammers should get paid for their hard work. It gets into why book bloggers and Bookstagrammers generally aren’t paid and what some of the perspectives are. It’s a very interesting post, considering how much time and energy we put into our blogs and social media accounts.

In an entry for the Beyond the Books meme, Karen @ KissinBlueKaren wrote one of her posts by hand—as in, it’s done in handwriting. This was published in 2016, but it’s the first time I’ve seen it. I like the idea of mixing it up by bringing handwriting to the blogosphere.

Avery @ Red Rocket Panda wrote a discussion post about our relationships with books. By that, he brings up finances and hoarding, and I think this is something that should be talked about more in the book blogging community.

>^..^<

Thank you for your continued support through following, liking, reading and commenting on my posts.

How was June for you? What are you currently reading?