May’s Moments of the Month: March // I Read 23 Books and I Wasn’t Sad… What’s Going On

March was an absolute mess.

It’s a blur in my head but it also lasted like three years somehow. And, as is being proclaimed all over the internet, 2020 is sucking so far, March being the worst!!

But I’m very privileged to live a life where I can afford to live at home and not attend school, and I strangely had a… pretty good month? Despite everything going on right now from COVID-19, I managed to somehow do great while everything around me just burned to the ground. I’m not like other girls!!!!

Today, I’m going to be talking about what March was like for me, because it was actually decent for once in my life!!

I read 23 books this month, and I am EXTREMELY pleased with myself!! (Even if 12 of them were 20-paged comics… let me have this.) Only 2 of them weren’t read during my time social distancing in the last half of the month, and I think it’s pretty cool of me to be useless for one half of the month.

I also took advantage of Scribd offering free 30-day access to their collection, and I’m enjoying my access to audiobooks so that I can multitask and then accidentally tune out!!

Also, this month I’m going to try a different thing to mark my favorite/least favorite books! Favorite will be signified with a 🌹, least favorite with 🥀, and, if I have any, disappointing with 💔.

        

• Foolish Hearts Emma Mills // [reread] this always makes my heart happy… I love Gideon and I love Iris and I love Emma Mills for the serotonin!!! ★★★★☆ [4.5]
• 🥀 Bless Me, Ultima Rudolfo Anaya // read this for school for a few months. it was terrible and I was bored. love my English teacher but this wasn’t it! ★☆☆☆☆
• 🌹 Aristotle and Dante Benjamin Alire-Saenz // [reread] I hate the long title but I love this book and it made me cry and it just Hits me so hard as a sad gay ★★★★★
• The Dragon Republic RF Kuang // I didn’t register how painful the ending was at first because I was so engrossed but it hurts… anyways Fang Runin step on me ★★★★☆
• 🌹 The Song of Achilles Madeline Miller // [reread] this is just like pain… and pain… and then more pain. sobbed a lot!! I already want to reread it again ★★★★★
• The Best Lies Sarah Lyu // I expected more of a thriller than a mystery but I was completely in love with the complex character relationships!! ★★★★☆

        

• Loveboat, Taipei Abigail Hing Wen // a lot of ridiculous things went on and those + other conflicts were badly resolved. didn’t love the romance either ★★☆☆☆
• the witch doesn’t burn in this one Amanda Lovelace // “protest → potest → poetst → poett → poetr → poetry” broke me. I hate it here ★★☆☆☆
• the mermaid’s voice returns in this one Amanda Lovelace // this had much better writing than the previous book but I was just confused as hell ★★☆☆☆ [2.5]
• Fence #1-12 CS Pacat // I’ve always wanted to read this comic and it was so good!! binged it all in a night, made me smile so much, reminded me of tfc… ★★★★☆ [avg: 3.72]
• 💔 This is How You Lose the Time War Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone // I was expecting 5 stars and I like obscure pretty prose but… this didn’t work for me—I was confused and didn’t connect that well :o( ★★★☆☆
• In an Absent Dream Seanan McGuire // I was so tuned out in the beginning I didn’t even know someone had died but the ending was so good!! ★★★☆☆ [3.5]

updates

• For the time being, it seems like I’m back to being active again, which makes me so happy!! I’ve always known how much time blogging can take up, but now getting back into it, I understand why I couldn’t keep this up with the amount of schoolwork that I had!
• Also, I’m starting to do some 2020 Book Blogger Awards preparations and I am very excited!!! Changes have been made in an attempt to be more inclusive, and there’s also a surprise this year (not prizes, I must be clear: I’m BROKE). So keep an eye out in 2 months’ time!!
• Oh, and I know I talk about my stupid feedback survey in every post, but this time I’m not going to push you to fill it out though of course you’re still welcome to… :o). I just want to mention that some of you guys wanted my tv show/movie/music recs, and I would LOVE to deliver that content for you, but I watch very few things and listen to the same songs so it’d be a short, unhelpful post!!

top posts

   

favorite posts from others

• May @ My 1st Chapter is blogging again, and every time I see her posts in my feed I get a burst of serotonin!! She shows off her extraordinary artistry and makes me extremely jealous and proud of her.
• Ilsa @ A Whisper of Ink also returned, with a post wrapping up her 2019 in books!! I ADORE her and her blog, and I also get a surge of happiness whenever her posts pop up in my Reader.
• Sophie @ Moon Child, Don’t cry gives amazing recommendations on what to do while social distancing, featuring recs for movies, shows, and books, as well as general activities you can pick up!
• Marie @ Drizzle and Hurricane Books lists 5 tips for interacting with the book community, which you should all read immediately because Marie is the best person ever, and as a very active member of the community, she knows what she’s talking about!!
• Silvia @ Silvia Reads Books recommends her favorite novellas, which is PERFECT for this time when I think we all are struggling to focus on books for a long time!

• I had a whole mess with choosing WIPs, aka I was just really stupid (as always) and decided to return to my 2019 NaNoWriMo project that had zero plot. So going into Camp NaNo I had absolutely zero idea what was going to happen!
• (It’s April 1 as I write this, and I managed to come up with something to work with
• As for poetry, I wrote only 1 poem, but I’m okay with it because it wasn’t when I was sad. I’m growing!!
• Wow this section is so small… heartbreaking.

• My mental health was so! good! Things were kind of hectic at the beginning of the month, because of sch**l, but when I had two weeks of spring break? I had only one bad day and spent the rest strangely kind of… happy, or at least content. Which was completely unexpected!
• School is also a lot less stressful for me now, and I really love doing things online! It fits really well with my personal learning style: the independent, work-at-your-own-pace kind of work.

• Life in general was very wild this month, as I’m sure it was for everyone. It wasn’t very hard for me to adjust to staying home all day, because I LOVE it. I thought I’d be miserable, because I get sad when I don’t have things/friends to distract me, but I guess the introvert in me won.
• Watched a lot of movies/shows (Criminal Minds <3), listened to more Wallows (new single!! don’t love it but it’s fine!!!) and Cage the Elephant, did a lot of dancing through Zoom. I don’t know! I know a lot happened in March, but it just all blurred together to create one really long month.

(I didn’t have an actual wrap-up for December, so I didn’t make any goals except for these small non-blogging ones) ✓ㄨ

• read 9 (10?) books ✓✓✓ (HELL YEAH I am immensely pleased with myself)
• post 5 times ✓ (6 posts!!! a majority of them were again in the last half of the month)
• answer some comments!! comment on blogs!!! ✓ (coronavirus be like: May you’re going to be productive even when the world is dying)
• write 5 poems ㄨ (I take the productivity thing back I failed at this)
• keep plotting WIP ㄨ (I also failed at this)
• do driver’s ed stuff ㄨ (and this)
• don’t watch past s7 of CM ✓ (I’m actually VERY surprised that I succeeded with this, but I’m just at the end of s7, not past!)

• read 12 books (a voice inside me is chanting more more more but… I’m not that confident)
• post 7 times (I’m trying to post 2 times a week again, so it should technically get me 9 posts, BUT I’m giving myself some leeway here!)
• follow more blogs!
• write 5 poems (PLEASE this is so easy)
• write 15k of WIP for Camp NaNo (we have no plot but it’s okay I just want to Write)
• ACTUALLY do driver’s ed stuff
• do more physical activity (yes I’m still dancing, but I also just want to stretch & work out more!)

The social distancing continues. I haven’t left my house once since March 14, and it’ll stay that way unless absolutely necessary! I hope my mental health stays stable because I would definitely suffer having to stay home all day with a lot of time on my hands if I was sad. :o)

Dance choreography showcase!! Last year we started the tradition of high schoolers of my dance team choreographing a piece for other team members, so I’m excited to do it again this year! (I might actually enjoying choreographing/setting pieces more than actually dancing them.) It’s going to be different this year, since it’ll be filmed through Zoom, but I think I’m going to make mine have a short film kind of vibe and I’m REALLY excited.

Camp NaNo… The ellipsis is for the fact that I have a very bad plot and I’m definitely going to suffer later on this month So far I’ve written almost 900 words, which is on track for my goal of 15,000 words! But I’m also plotting and writing at the same time so not to be humble or anything but… I’m superior.

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how was your march? how are you faring during this whole crisis? (take care of yourselves!!) what books did you read? what are your plans for april!!