May Reading Wrap-Up

Books Read

• Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz (★★☆☆☆ – print, library) – a historical thriller about a woman in the 1800s who wants to be a doctor
• Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson (★★★★☆ – audiobook, Libby) – a YA thriller about kids at a boarding school in Vermont who are trying to solve a decades-old mystery
• Yours in Scandal by Lauren Layne (★★★★☆ – e-book, owned, Amazon) – a fun romance about the mayor of NYC falling in love with his opponent’s daughter
• The Maid by Nita Prose (★★★★★ – print, owned, Book of the Month) – a truly heartwarming story that is part-thriller and part-character study
• All the Feels by Olivia Dade (★★★★☆ – e-book, Libby) – a sweet romance about a TV star falling in love with his handler
• The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin (★★★★☆ – print, owned, Tombolo Books) – an impactful slim book that compiles two long letters: one to Baldwin’s nephew and one to America
• Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad (★★★★★ – audiobook, Libby) – a beautifully written memoir about a woman who gets an aggressive form of leukemia at 22 and the road trip she takes after finishing treatment
• Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez (★★★☆☆ – #ownvoices, print, owned, Book of the Month) – a fictionalized retelling of a court case that involved poor women of color being sterilized against their will
• Cream and Punishment by Susannah Nix (★★★★☆- e-book, owned, Amazon) – a contemporary romance novel involving the trope of “second chance romance” that was exactly what I needed
• Flight of Dreams by Ariel Lawhon (★★★★☆ – print, owned, Thriftbooks) – a fictionalized retelling of the Hindenburg disaster that left 35 people dead and what may have happened to cause the explosion

Book Challenges

• Book Club – Our May pick for book club was Anatomy: A Love Story, but we didn’t get to discuss it this month since a bunch of people were feeling under the weather on the day we were supposed to meet. The friend who recommended it gave it 5 stars but most of us gave it 3 or fewer stars, so it was going to be a spicy book club!
• Unread Shelf Project – In May, the prompt was to read the shortest book on my shelves, so I picked up The Fire Next Time, which is just 102 pages. I’m really glad I finally picked up this book! I bought it at my favorite local indie bookstore last year because I knew I wanted to have this book on my shelves.
• Goodreads Challenge: I only read one book off my Goodreads Challenge list (wherein I’m reading all of the books added to my Goodreads TBR before 2018), which was Flight of Dreams. It was such a good book and I can’t believe I waited so long to read it!

Book Stats

• # of books read: 10
• # of pages read: 3,226 pages
• Genre breakdown: Fiction (40%), Romance (20%), Nonfiction (20%), YA (10%), and Mystery/Thriller (10%)
• Format breakdown: print (50%), e-book (30%), and audiobook (20%)
• Fastest read: The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin (3 days)
• Slowest read: Truly Devious, All the Feels, and Between Two Kingdoms (9 days)
• Star average: 3.8 (down .5 from last month, oof!)
• % of books by or about BIPOC or the LGBT community: 30%
• Abandoned books: 4 (Feel the Heat by Kate Meader, Dating Dr. Dil by Nisha Sharma, Read Between the Lines by Rachel Lacey, and Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong)
• Goodreads goal check-in: I set a goal of 135 books this year and currently, I am 4 books behind schedule. Eeks!

Superlatives of May

• Favorite book of May: The Maid by Nita Prose
• Favorite romance of May: All the Feels by Olivia Dade
• The book that will stick with me for a long, long time: Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad
• The book I thought I would like more than I did: Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
• The book that had me googling the most to learn more about the facts presented in the book: Flight of Dreams by Ariel Lawhon

What was the best book you read in May?