May’s Moments of the Month: April // Meh Reading but Lots of Writing!!

Did April even happen? Was it actually real?

April honestly felt like it lasted .2 minutes. I haven’t left the house in a over a month at this point (7 weeks going on 8 baby!!) and I’m pretty okay with that. But it truly does feel like only yesterday I started doing online school, and I can’t believe it’s already been over a month that things started getting really serious in the US!

Today I’ll be wrapping up what happened in April, including a very average reading month, a very above average writing month, and gay Thai dramas!!

I read 12 books this month! Only 5 of them were actual full-length novels, but half of everything I read had a sapphic main character so what REALLY matters here??

Unfortunately, the quality of my reading was probably the worst it’s ever been? It doesn’t feel like it was that bad, but my ratings honestly say otherwise. (My average was 2.96 this month…) But I read 7 audiobooks and only 2 physical books because for some reason my brain can only focus on audios!

Favorite: 🌹, least favorite: 🥀, disappointing: 💔.

        

• 🥀 Come Tumbling Down Seanan McGuire // all 200 pages of this were so unnecessary and absolutely nothing happened the entire time ★★☆☆☆ [1.5]
• Quiet Girl in a Noisy World Debbie Tung // quick fun read and relatable as an introvert but felt a bit too “not like other girls” ★★★☆☆
• The Child Finder Rene Denfeld // incest nation rise up!!! it was well-written but not that interesting and I was bored/didn’t care that much ★★☆☆☆ [2.5]
• All Systems Red Martha Wells // so much fun!! love Murderbot a lot and this novella was really entertaining to read ★★★★☆
• Queens of Geek Jen Wilde // fun and quick to read, which was what I wanted, but I had a lot of objective issues with the writing ★★★☆☆
• Artificial Condition Martha Wells // not as fun as the first novella, I just didn’t vibe with it as much! ★★★☆☆ [3.5]

         

• The Deep Rivers Solomon // really beautiful! took a bit to get into but I absolutely adored the messages and the theme exploration ★★★★☆
• Rogue Protocol Martha Wells // again didn’t vibe with this one as much and the pacing was just… not it ★★★☆☆
• 💔 The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea Maggie Tokuda-Hall // lots of potential but didn’t live up!! underdeveloped romance and weird plot ★★☆☆☆ [review]
• The Midnight Lie Marie Rutkoski // really liked the characters and romance but didn’t care for them and had no idea what the motive was ★★★☆☆
• 🌹 You Should See Me in a Crown Leah Johnson // surprised by how much I loved this one! loved the protagonist and it’s just a feel-good book!! ★★★★☆
• Book Love Debbie Tung // definitely cute/relatable for book lovers but I’ve seen all these jokes before and they weren’t funny to me anymore! ★★☆☆☆

updates

• I kind of disappeared for like a week, but I think mainly school made me lose some motivation, both in blogging and other life areas in general! I had a bunch of post ideas but just didn’t feel like actually carrying them out.
• But in other exciting news, the 2020 Book Blogger Awards are officially launching on MAY 31 so… keep your eye out for them!! I’m very excited about this year, and I do have some exciting things for you so. :))
• In general though, I’ve been doing monumentally better at keeping up with comments and it makes me so happy!!

top posts

   

favorite posts from others

• Marie @ Drizzle and Hurricane Books shares how she plans her blog content, and it’s a great resource to look at, especially if you’re just starting out blogging!!
• CW @ The Quiet Pond lists queer historical fiction books to read, in both the YA and adult age group.
• Maha @ Sunshine n’ Books writes about the challenge of being productive/creative during this time, and also why we shouldn’t pressure ourselves do be those things.
• Caitlin @ Caitlina Althea shares f/f books she read + books on her TBR, so if any of you need some f/f books to read be sure to check that out!
• Chana and Malka @ Paper Procrastinators provide a great list of 20 books to read during a pandemic and there’s something for everyone!!

• I did Camp NaNoWriMo and “failed”Camp NaNoWriMo and “failed” because I ended up ditching my WIP after writing about 3.6k of it!
• However, I do say “failed” NaNo in quotes, because my goal was to write 15k words, and I ended up writing 17.3k, including both the old project and the planning for a new project I began!
• I started the planning process for another WIP, which I am very excited about. It’s the type of dark fantasy I’ve been wanting to work on for a while now and I’m actually taking the time to develop things??
• I also started up the habit of writing with May for at least 30 minutes every night, and though I hate to say it, it’s the BEST. I’m actually doing Writing Things every day now and I really love it!
• Anyways I feel like I annoy people when I share writing snippets so if you wanna read just click on whatever you want <33

prose??

poem snippet

my planning process :PP

• My mental health, ah, went down a bit. It wasn’t anything terrible!! And things were mostly good, surprisingly. School just really sucks out all my energy, but thankfully I’ve been getting most of my work done on Monday and Tuesday so I have the rest of the week free.
• The HIGHLIGHT of my month was that I started watching 2gether the Series and I’m so obsessed!! It’s a gay Thai drama that has every romance trope you’ll ever want, and it’s just made me very happy.
• I also watched 3 Will Be Free, which has a totally different vibe but was also really really good!! I want to watch more shows since one of my goals this year was to just listen to more Thai Things to help improve my vocab :o)

 

• I also started learning how to read and write Thai, which is very fun for a language nerd like me. Unsurprisingly, it is VERY difficult! I now can read a lot more than I expected, but it takes me a long time. And since Thai is tonal and has so many rules, writing words is almost impossible for me unless I memorize them!!
• As for music, this month definitely became Cage the Elephant month. I said before I loved Social Cues by them, but I also really like Black Madonna, Ready to Let Go, Night Running, and Cold Cold Cold among others. (And I also started listening to more Thai music!!)

• read 12 books ✓ (I read Exactly 12… my power)
• post 7 times ✓ (exactly 7!)
• follow more blogs! ㄨ (uhh this is such an easy goal and yet I did not do it)
• write 5 poems ㄨ (only 2)
• write 15k of WIP for Camp NaNo ✓ㄨ (wrote 3.6k for the WIP, 13.7k planning another project!)
• ACTUALLY do driver’s ed stuff ㄨ (oh. forgot about this)
• do more physical activity ㄨ (:D)

• read 10 books (I have about 9 books on my May TBR and I want to read at least one more!!)
• post 7 times
• follow more blogs
• continue working on WIP!! (I’m so excited about it that I want to make fun of myself for it)
• write 3 poems
• do driver’s ed stuff
• read/write/listen to Thai every day (this is my excuse for watching Thai shows)
• exercise? work out?
• go outside for once jesus (I went outside like. once maybe? and it was for like 5 seconds)

Last day of school! It feels strange to say that my last day of school is coming up because it feels like school hasn’t been happening at all? But this school year will be over for me in a few weeks and it doesn’t feel real!! I’m kinda dreading it though, since I’m not looking forward to my next year of high school…

2020 Book Blogger Awards! The announcement post is going up on May 31, so it’s almost the next month, but I’m still counting it. I’m very very excited for this year, and I think it’s going to be a lot of fun and hopefully bigger?? Perhaps???

The official start of summer? It already kinda feels like my summer break since 1) I’m staying home, 2) I have no social plans, and 3) it is already getting too hot. But it technically starts this month!! I’m sad because I was really looking forward to going to Thailand in July, but we probably aren’t going to go anymore. :((

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how was april for you? did you have a good reading month? how was camp nano if you participated? what are some of your goals for may??