Ooh, we are nearly ten days into June and I’m just now writing my reading recap for May – whoops! It’s just the way my blogging schedule shook out this month. In any event, May was an interesting month of reading. I read 10 books, which is about average for me, but only half of them were 4 or 5 stars. The other half were books that I either didn’t like or felt neutral about. However, one of the books I read is definitely in the running to be my overall favorite for 2018, so it all evens out.
Another interesting thing about May is that I didn’t listen to any audiobooks this month – ahh. Due to being on my cruise, I missed a full week of podcasts and my feed felt a little out of control, so I decided to take the month off listening to audiobooks to catch up on my podcast feed. I’ll be back on my audiobook game in June, though!
May Reading List
- Overall favorite: The Garden of Small Beginnings by Abbi Waxman
- Favorite romance: Moonlight Over Manhattan by Sarah Morgan (review)
- Other 4 and 5-star reads:
- Books I was lukewarm about: We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby, About That Kiss by Jill Shalvis
- Books I didn’t like: The Final Score by Jaci Burton (review), The Engagements by J. Courtney Sullivan (review)
Other Book Stats
- Number of pages read: 3,343
- Breakdown of formats: physical books (5), ebooks (5)
- Breakdown of genres: fiction (3), nonfiction (1), science fiction (1), romance (5)
- Number of diverse reads: 1 (10% – eeks)
- Where I sourced my books: library/Overdrive (7), Amazon (1), Barnes & Noble (1), Book of the Month (1)
- Book that took me the longest time to read: The Engagements (12 days)
- Book that took me the shortest time to read: How to Walk Away (2 days)
- Expense of books read: $24.98
Favorite Quotes
“Here’s what I think: I don’t think there is just one person for everyone. I think there are actually lots. But think about how many people you meet, and how many people you don’t meet. Hundreds of people pass you on the street every day, and somewhere among them might be the one you could fall in love with, have children with, or just live with in peace and harmony for your whole life. But what if they turn the corner before you do, or go back to get something they forgot, or take one minute longer to get coffee at Starbucks… you might never meet. And then what if you do meet but for some reason you’re having an off day, or they are, or they just broke up with someone, or they’re coming down with a cold, or whatever, so for whatever reason you don’t click right away with. It’s amazing anyone hooks up at all, really.” – The Garden of Small Beginnings
“From then on, whenever Kate caught sight of her sister’s diamond ring, she felt uneasy. She hated that it was supposed to symbolize love and perfection, an idea that seemed so removed from the nature of marriage itself, which even as its best was messy and mundane. She resented the whole notion that a relationship was perfect just because two people got married.” – The Engagements
“Whenever she’d thought about it, and she’d thought about it often, she’d imagined love would be a gentle, comforting, enveloping feeling. Like bathing in warm water or being wrapped in a blanket. She hadn’t expected it to feel like this. Hadn’t expected the wild intoxication that felt as if she’d inhaled an illegal substance. It made her giddy. It made her want to smile at times where no smile was warranted. When she was feeding one of the dogs or occupied by some mundane task like peeling potatoes.” – Moonlight Over Manhattan
What’s the best book you read in May?
The garden of small beginnings was my fave book, too! It was do easy to get into which is what I need in my life these days!! Thanks for bringing it to my attention!
I am SO GLAD you loved that book, too! The characters were just so delightful and it made me want to start gardening, haha.
Ten books?! And none of them were audiobooks?! Jeez, I thought I did well reading five books in May. Wow.
Best book I read in May was easily Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust. It’s billed as a feminist retelling of Snow White. I’m not usually big on fantasy type stories but I LOVED this story. It actually made me look forward to going to work because I listened to it during the 45 minute walk from home to the office.
I also read Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver, which I really did enjoy, especially since it was narrated by Sarah Drew (aka April Kepner from Grey’s Anatomy!)
Reading is not a competition! 🙂 I have a lot of free time and I use it to read. Some people use their free time for other things. For example, it takes me MONTHS to finish one season of a show on Netflix, while my mom breezes through a season in a matter of days. We do different things with our free time, and that’s perfectly fine.
Five books is way above the average, so you should be proud of that number! I have heard about Girls Made of Snow and Glass and I think I might add it to my TBR based on your recommendation. Thanks!
You’ve really inspired me to read more books from POC. So far I’ve only read books written by women this year (which started as an accident), and I’ve been really mindful to include women on color in that mix, and it’s been a really fun adventure.
Oh, I’m so glad to hear this! I admit that I have to be super intentional about reading diversely, which is so crappy when I think about that. It shouldn’t be that hard!
Damn lady, 10 books. Solid! I’ve heard good things about The Garden of Small Beginnings, so it’s definitely on my to-read list now 🙂
I hope you give it a try! It has such delightful characters.