This was a bit of a mess of a month if I am being honest. After having spent the last three months reading a ton of books for some readathons and reading challenges, I knew that there was a possibility of me going into a bit of a slump. While that thankfully didn't happen, I wouldn't say this month was very successful.
I had a good amount of 2-star reads, and I was DNFing books left, right and center. While I do consider that a good thing since I can cut down the books on my TBR, I just wasn't able to find a good book this month which is unfortunate.
Luckily though, I decided to round out the month with the tour de force that was Solo Leveling. I made it a goal, that I sadly did not place on my 22 Books to Read in 2022 list, to read this now that it has finished. And I did, and now I can say that I get what all the hype is about.
Enough talking now, onto the statistics!
I read 7 books, 3 volumes of manga, and 2 webcomics for a grand total of 12 titles and roughly 3,035+ pages read.
Here are all the books I read. If you want to check out my reviews, click on the pink links!
The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah
Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins
The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James
Finlay Donovan Is Killing It by Elle Cosimano
The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill
Gory Details by Erika Engelhaupt
The Boy & the Wolf by Z-Pico (RE-READ)
The 22 Murders of Madison May by Max Barry
Solo Leveling Season 1-2 by DUBU, h-goon and Chugong
I DNF'D 6 books this month which is...a lot. Things were just not working out for me, but I guess it is better to DNF them than to slog my way through them, so a bit of a silver lining there. Now, unlike my previous reviews, I decided to actually go into detail now as to why I put these books down. So, here are all the books I put down:
All the Seas of the World by Guy Gavriel Kay
I have heard of this author before, so when his upcoming book popped up on NetGalley, I thought I would give it a shot. There were two problems with this though. One, it was not advertised that this, while a standalone, was part of a larger already established universe. Secondly, there was a character list at the beginning of the book which was a bit of a red flag, because that meant that I wasn't going to be able to easily follow along with the story. I also just wasn't able to get into the story unfortunately as well.
Sex Cult Nun by Faith Jones
Having discovered this book through one of Katie Colson's wrap-ups, I thought this would be an interesting read even though I don't particularly like reading about cults. This is a (mostly) firsthand account as the author is the granddaughter of the founder of the group this focuses on. While still interesting, this was just a bit too wild for me. This was an uncomfortable read, no doubt about that, and I just couldn't make myself get through the entirety of it.
A Clash of Steel by C.B. Lee
I did make an effort to get through this book, because I am always on the hunt for a good pirate book, and this is a remake of Treasure Island. After getting to the halfway point and pretty much nothing happening, I decided that no matter how good the second half could turn out to be, it was not worth the slog that was my reading experience.
The Black Tides of Heaven by Neon Yang
This is a novella, so there wasn't much to it, but what was there just didn't hold my attention. The book was missing a lot of context that I needed in order to understand the world, and the characters fell very flat.
Nine Lives by Peter Swanson
Similar to All the Seas of the World, this book suffers from having too many characters. This also had a character list at the beginning which made me immediately pull back all interest I had in wanting to read this. I would have been better off if each chapter focused on a different character, but it did cycle through the characters which was confusing.
The Push by Ashley Audrain
I was stuck on the waitlist for this book for months. Months that went straight down the drain once I realized that I did not, in fact, read the synopsis of this book. That was a problem because 5 minutes into the audiobook, I quickly realized that this was not a book for me. I don't really gravitate towards books that focus on the mental state of a character, and not much else. It was my bad...
Ratings
⭐....................1
⭐⭐................3
⭐⭐⭐...........3
⭐⭐⭐⭐......4
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.1
In terms of quality, we've got a bit of a spread going on. Got a 5-star, but also had a 1-star read to balance things out (I guess). All of my 4-star, and 5-star as well, reads were all of a graphic medium, which isn't surprising, So taking those out, I am left with a whole bunch of books that just didn't impress me much.
Genres
Fantasy - 5
Mystery - 4
Sci-fi - 1
Romance - 1
Nonfiction - 1
As usual, fantasy tops the list of most read genre, which is no surprise, but coming in second place we have mystery. I guess I was just in the mood for it this month, even though it didn't end up working out well for me...
Best of the Month - Solo Leveling
Worst of the Month - Reckless Girls
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