May’s Moments of the Month: May // End of School, Asian Books, and What to Do For Black Lives Matter

Hi, it’s been a month.

If you’ve been paying attention to the news or social media at all within the last few days, Black lives Matter protests have been taking place to demand justice for the murder of George Floyd and countless other Black people at the hands of the police. Please go ahead and unfollow me if you disagree with BLM, ACAB, or the protests happening right now—it’s honestly best for the both of us!

I have a platform on this blog, and I think it’s very important that I use it. Please do not stay silent on these matters, now and in the future, and make sure to be actively anti-racist every single day. Here is a list of different things you can do right now:

• sign petitions
• text/call/email people
• stream this video (ad revenue will be donated, don’t skip ads!)
• donate to the George Floyd gofundme
• donate to the Ahmaud Arbery gofundme
• donate to these bail funds, research local ones near you too
• donate to these organizations
• donate to small Black businesses that were destroyed (in general, buy from Black businesses)
• donate to protesting youth on the frontlines
• protest, if you can be safe/healthy! wear a mask, tips on overall safety

It is also important to announce that because of this, the 2020 Book Blogger Awards have been postponed until further notice. The new launch date will be announced as soon as possible, but please focus on being good allies to our Black friends (whether they are bloggers or not) right now!!

I will be including these links, and adding on if needed, at the beginning of each of my posts! This post will be a recap on what happened in May and is slightly shorter (emphasis on slightly because I cannot shut up) than my usual recaps.

I read 8 books in May! I didn’t quite follow my TBR but we won’t talk about that. Honestly I’m surprised I managed to read 8; my focus has been close to nonexistent, and I either have to read everything in one sitting or I don’t read anything at all.

While there were some great Asian books, there were also lots of disappointing ones too, which I’m sad about! I don’t know why my reads have been so meh/bad recently, but I hope it doesn’t continue. But I’m officially halfway through my Goodreads challenge so. perhaps I am superior??

Also something impressive I will absolutely brag about is that I went through my Goodreads TBR shelf, and took off almost 500 books! I really am superior sometimes!!

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

     

• The Henna Wars Adiba Jaigirdar // I loved the romance, sister relationship, and QPOC rep so much in this book!! ★★★★☆ [review]
• 🌹 Love From A to Z SK Ali // such a cute book with so many important messages. I love Adam and Zayneb so much!!! ★★★★☆
• 🥀 Like a Love Story Abdi Nazemian // one of the worst reading experiences ever. annoying characters, bad writing… just so disappointing, since I was expecting a new favorite! ★★☆☆☆
• On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous Ocean Vuong // a little hard to get into but so so beautiful and overall a very immersive experience ★★★★☆ [3.5]

     

• Amina’s Voice Hena Khan // sweet and warm but the ending was just so abrupt and felt underwhelming ★★★☆☆ [2.5]
• Not Your Sidekick CB Lee // I have a few objective issues, but I had so much fun reading it! binged in one sitting ★★★★☆ [3.5]
• 💔 Unravel the Dusk Elizabeth Lim // this is my biggest disappointment no one talk to me… I basically just didn’t care about the characters ★★☆☆☆
• Harley in the Sky Akemi Dawn Bowman // also a disappointment! didn’t care about the characters again but it was overall well-written ★★☆☆☆ [2.5]

updates

I was doing slightly better with commenting on blog posts, but then it went downhill near the end of the month. I’ve been pretty good with replying to comments, and commenting back, but actually commenting on the posts in my Reader… not really.

As stated before, the 2020 Book Blogger Awards are postponed and Marie and I will let you know the newest launch date as soon as we can!

top posts

   

Though I posted less than I hoped to, all my posts did so well? And some surprised me with how well they did? Thank you for always supporting my content!! It makes me really happy to see that you love the posts that I put out, because I’m beginning to really love them too.

(Also I was overwhelmed by how you all loved my PJO/HOO tag!!)

favorite posts from others

• Marie @ Drizzle and Hurricane Books discusses how book blogging has changed, and I love the post, so so much.
• CW @ The Quiet Pond hosts Asian Heritage Month at the Quiet Pond and all of the posts are so well-written and important.
• Charlotte @ Tea Leaf Reads writes a great guide for the new WordPress block editor and you should all take a look at it if you’ve been struggling to get used to it!
• Fadwa @ Word Wonders recommends over 100 books by Muslim authors for Ramadan that you should read any time of the year!
• Faith @ Pages Left Unread reviews Felix Ever After as an ownvoices reader, and if you need any reason to read this book, you should absolutely check their review out.
• Maha @ Sunshine n’ Books invites 6 Muslim bloggers to discuss their experience on being Muslim in the book community!
• Anna & Charlotte @ Reads Rainbow lists LGBTQIAP+ YA books releasing Jan-June 2020, and also all the LGBTQIAP+ YA books that came out in 2019!

I reached 28.3k words for my planning, meaning I wrote about 14.6k more this month. And while that may sound like a lot, a good majority of it is either me coming up with one thing after rambling for 500 words and then ditching it 5 pages later, or something like:

I honestly don’t have much of a plot right now, but I’m trying to figure it out and hopefully that will be done this month! I’m also hoping that I will be able to make an outline in June as well.

Perhaps the most important writing achievement was that I made picrews of my characters!!! I spent like 3 hours on them and I have no regrets. However these are all subject to change because I would absolutely spend another 3 hours fixing them!! (Credit to @poika_, here’s the link.)

     

As for poetry, I didn’t write much, but I did write a poem that actually… was not bad!! It’s very different from what I’m used to writing, but I ended up doing some ~cool~ things I didn’t mean to and so I’m vaguely, vaguely proud of that.

• I finished school! I didn’t have any exams, and I haven’t seen my classmates’ faces since like March, so it was a very underwhelming finish. But I did it!
• I listened to a lot of music (Cage the Elephant, Clairo, Rina Sawayama).
• I had a dance recital on Zoom, and at one point I completely blanked and had to step out of the camera frame for a whole 30 seconds. (After that I put my glasses on so I could actually, you know, see the computer screen.)

• I watched and became obsessed with Avatar: The Last Airbender!! I genuinely cannot stop thinking about it and I’m tempted to rewatch already. I think it’s one of my top favorite shows of all time??
• I did a workout program for 2 weeks! It was really great, except after I finished it, I was completely unmotivated to continue doing any form of exercise.

• read 10 books ㄨ
• post 7 times ㄨ (awards post was supposed to be the 7th)
• follow more blogs ✓
• continue working on WIP!! ✓
• write 3 poems ✓ (finally. FINALLY)
• do driver’s ed stuff ㄨ
• read/write/listen to Thai every day ㄨ (I’m very sad about this)
• exercise? work out? ✓
• go outside for once jesus ㄨ

• read 13 books (this is the exact amount of books on my June TBR!!)
• 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
• work out
• SAT practice
• research college stuff (my parents are getting on to me about this)
• donate

Even without the Black Lives Matter protests happening right now, I honestly would not know what to say here. It’s summer, and the third month of lockdown for me. There really isn’t anything major that’s going to happen in my life while I’m at home and out of school? Every day is just like, wake up, go on phone or computer, read a bit, eat, and sleep.

---

how was your May? have you watched ATLA?? was your reading less disappointing than mine? and most importantly, have you been a good ally and spoken up about BLM?