I’m not sure why, but May felt like walking through molasses. The school year is ending, yes, with all the joys and busywork that brings. However, I found myself having to hype myself up to read, even in books I was tremendously enjoying. Add some procrastination on house projects, and I had a spectacularly unproductive month. However, what May lacked in quantity, it more than made up for in quality of reads. I have almost no regrets in how I spent my reading time this month, other than wishing I’d have been able to squeeze another book or two in. The good news? The last week saw a lot more movement and motivation, so things are looking good heading into summer break.
Life is about to get extremely exciting. I’m helping run the Pride month festivities over on r/fantasy (more details to come, but I’m super excited for the author panel), students earned the ability to cut my hair (pray for me), my dad is celebrating his 70th birthday, I’m going to spend a week doing nothing in Kansas under a blanket of stars, and I’m going to learn how to replace dry rot on window trim! For now, however, here’s how my month in reading went before I dash off to grad parties for my homeroom students!
Let’s dive into some books!
Longform Reviews
Kalyna the Cutthroat: an intensely introspective story about the refugee experience. It had some pacing issues, but Spector writes isolation and otherness extremely well
Barbalien: Red Planet: a superhero story set during the AIDS epidemic. The superhero elements were forgettable, but it was relentlessly humanizing, joyful, and painful
The Red Winter: dark fantasy featuring a possessed sorcerer on a werewolf hunt shortly before the French Revolution. Fast paced with delightful footnotes
To Ride a Rising Storm: Book 2 of Nampeshiweisit, this is a phenomenal slice of life dragon school story focusing on the many forms of racism and its impact on indigenous people
Works of Vermin: art and politics and capitalism collide in this deliciously weird book. Perhaps not unique, but pretty damn close.
A Parade of Horribles: My least favorite in the Dungeon Crawler Carl Franchise so far, but still an enjoyable ride. I’m a bit worried to see if Dinnaman will stick the landing, but even if he doesn’t, this series brought me a lot of joy.
The Daily Grind: a mindless exploration of an interdimensional dungeon featuring aggressive office supplies.
The Many Deaths of Laila Starr: a contemplative comic following Death transposed into a mortal body. Emotive and gorgeous art.
This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me: a high-quality Romantasy that doesn’t skimp on a fun and pulpy political framing
Call and Response: a really cool short fiction collection exploring blackness and queerness across (mostly) American history. Each story had a ‘sibling’, asking you to return to the same world, though perhaps not to the same character.
Nine-Tenths: a romance that took a hard look on the challenges interspecies romances (dragon/human) face
A review of The Daughter of Crows is incoming. I’ve been fairly unmotivated to write it because I was also fairly unmotivated to read it. In hindsight, this probably should have been a DNF.
Mini-Reviews
None! Everything this month felt worthy of a longer write-up.
r/Fantasy Bingo Check In
Things are ticking along nicely! I’m about at the point where I’m going to start hunting down specific titles to fill in the rest of my Achillean card. Once it’s done, I can start bumping some of the less exciting books as I read more organically, and I won’t need to be as laser-focused on Achillean books for my physical reading. Novellas will ramp up in July when I aim to read one per day (why do I do this to myself?), and graphic novels tend to come up more in the Fall and Winter.
Around the Blogosphere
It turns out I like reading book reviews just as much as I love reading books. Here are some of my favorites from the month!
I’m always interested in more Fonda Lee, and this review of The Last Contract of Isako from Biblionerdreflections has made me very excited.
This review of Abyss at Books Bones & Buffy – a corporate eldritch horror that I can’t wait to try!
Captain’s Quarters reviewed the newest Singing Hills Novella, A Long and Speaking Silence. I’m excited to read it but need to accept that Chih is more and more of a main character the more stories in this series Vo writes.
I’ve floated a bit away from hard magic, which used to be an obsession of mine. I still enjoy it a ton though, and I’ve only read one of these (also, new Freya Marske!). Also Every Book a Doorway has me very interested in Wyrd and Wonder.
I’ve seen quite a bit floating around about And Side by Side they Wander, but this review from The Quill To Live convinced me to finally order a copy. I’m a sucker for thematic-focused novellas, so my hopes are high for this one!
The Brothers is a Hmong folktale comic that a) looks great, and b) looks perfect for both my comics and mythology middle school electives. Thank you to The Bibliophibian for connecting me with it!
DNF
Just one for the month, which is pretty good considering how low emotionally I was.
First Tilt by Lucien Burr: there was nothing wrong with this, but I got annoyed with the characters before the plot could really go anywhere. It’s a bit overwritten, but not much more than Romance genre standards. And I have free will and can choose to not finish books!
What a delicious cover though.
Upcoming Reads
The plan is to keep focusing on Achillean stuff to try and finish (or get close to finishing) that bingo card. With how much I read, you’d think trying to commit to 8 books would be manageable, but I haven’t yet gotten to all the books I planned to read in one month!
Disco at the End of the World will happen though. Nathan Tavares has earned my trust and holds my heart in his hands.
Marked for Plot 