Swept Away (April Book Wrap-Up)

I've hit some roadblocks and shifted my goals a little bit, and this month was a little slow in terms of reading. But it was very heavily writing-focused, so I think it all evens out. If you're not caught up on the mini-crisis I went through earlier this month, click here. Otherwise, read on!

Writing
Follow the Raven went great this month! As you know I set out to write 10,000 words of the story during April's Camp NaNoWriMo, and I'm proud to say that I did exactly that. (My winner's certificate looks pretty awesome. Just saying.) The story is coming along at a nice pace; I actually just introduced one of the villains during the sprint that put me over the 10k mark. I'm excited to have more scenes with him in it in the near future. Next month I'll go back to aiming for 5k, but you can bet that come July I'm going to try and make this the first time that I win BOTH camps in the same year. For now, though, I'm going to take a well-deserved rest.

"Everything Changes" over on Wattpad really took off this month. I hit 1,000 reads and now have over 100 votes on the story. My readers are totally on board with this unique take on the Sonic Boom universe, and I'm excited to see how they feel in another month after tensions rise even higher than they are now. Some exciting stuff is coming, for sure! My current stats are 1,111 reads; 128 votes; and 23 comments.

Reading
If you read my last blog post, you're already aware that earlier this month I went through what I dubbed a "mid-takedown crisis" in which I suddenly lost all motivation to read books from my TBR because I felt like I was forcing myself to read them. I have since dealt with said crisis, but for the month of April my reading schedule went all out of whack and I read one less book than I had hoped to. The first book on this list is from my TBR. The rest are from the library.

• Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes
• The Selection by Kiera Cass
• Naermyth by Karen Francisco
• The Elite by Kiera Cass

Falling Kingdoms is a book that I saw at Barnes and Noble the last time I went and I distinctly remember thinking when I picked it up that, "Maybe this is a series I could get into." If you know my reading habits at all you know I'm really not one to just get hooked on a series; I'll read the first books of several different series but nine times out of ten I won't have a desire to finish them right away. Falling Kingdoms was that one out of ten exception, just like I anticipated it might be. It's a young adult high fantasy (seriously) that I am so, so on board with. I'm actually trying to hold out for our first Montana trip of the year before I buy the second book even though I really want it now because I have other books I need to get to first. Ha! I'm also going to state for the record that my favorite character thus far is Prince Magnus. We'll see if that lasts as I (eventually) move into the other books.

A full review of Naermyth (along with the crazy story of how I managed to acquire a copy to read in the first place) will be coming in May.

The Selection is the book I started reading to get me out of my early April reading slump, and suffice it to say, it did its job. I tore through that book so fast and was on to The Elite before I knew it. I've only just started The One (that will be part of my May wrap-up) so I can't give any thoughts on how the main trilogy ends quite yet, but so far I have to say I'm thoroughly impressed with Kiera Cass. Picking up superbly popular books in the young adult category is always a hit and miss. Sometimes you get The Hunger Games, sometimes you get Divergent. Going into The Selection I knew that it had a premise that was very similar to Princess Academy, which I read in elementary school. But Kiera Cass adds so much more to the idea of that story and creates characters that are so real and raw and relateable. 

There was a point near the end of the first book where I honestly just sat there and thought, "Wow, this author knows what she's doing!" She threw a massive wrench in just the right place and it was perfect. She also made me so, so angry at one of the characters in the second book that I actually put it down and could not pick it up again for a day or two. She's just so good at what she does. Her writing is excellent, her characters are believable, and there is a PERFECT balance of romance and tension. The Selection, in my opinion, is well worth the popularity it has received. I'm eager to see how it ends. (Stay tuned for my thoughts on that in May!)

Now that I've gotten through the worst of my mid-takedown crisis and have had a chance to rethink what I'm doing, here is the basic idea of how I want to continue plowing through my TBR from here until the end of August. Basically, I want to read at least three books from my list in May. I'm planning on starting my Skulduggery Pleasant readthrough in June, and that will take me through about mid-August. After that I'm hoping to read a couple more books that same month. We'll see where I stand after all of that, but for now, that's the general idea for you to follow along with if you so desire. Interspersed with my TBR books will be a few more library books than I've allowed thus far, and that's okay. That's part of my coping mechanism because there are so many good books coming out nowadays goodness gracious.

Speaking of Skulduggery Pleasant, I am beyond happy to announce that with the exception of the book set to release in June, I now own the entire series! This is a major dream come true for me! I'm elated to finally be able to find out what happens to Mr. Pleasant after the cliffhanger ending of Book 3 that I've been dangling off of all these years. At this point all I need is Book 10 (which I was going to pre-order from Amazon) but Amazon has taken it off of their site so I now have to go hunt it down somewhere else. But fear not! It shall soon be mine as well! :D

And that's all I've got for April! It's been kind of crazy with Camp NaNo and my mini reading crisis and whatnot, but I made it! See you next month!

Mid-TBR Takedown Crisis

I'm having a mid-TBR Takedown crisis.

Last month I updated you all on how my TBR Takedown was going. I modified my reading schedule, accounted for the library books I'd be reading, talked to you about my Skulduggery Pleasant readthrough, etc. Well, all that youthful optimism I had was thrown out the window by the time the first week of April was over - when I had only read 75 pages in seven days.

What happened? I was doing so well sticking to the schedule I had made for myself at that time, and I'd been making great headway on my TBR. Well...I'm not entirely sure what went wrong, to be honest. I started off great on April 1 - I read 75 pages of a book from my list and was totally ready to read 75 more the next day.

But then...I just lost motivation. I lost the drive to keep reading as well as I had, and that slump lasted six days. I wanted to read...but not the book I'd started. And not because it's something I think I'll have to DNF. Just because it was something I felt like I had to read. I guess that sitting down to re-evaluate my TBR Takedown schedule put things into perspective for me, and I realized I wouldn't have a lot of time for other reading if I wanted to finish my TBR by June, and all of that just kind of took the fun out of it for me. I suddenly felt like I wasn't reading the books on my list because I wanted to. I felt like I had to, like it was school reading all over again. Therefore I lost motivation.

So on the first Thursday of April, after work, I took home three different library books that I'd had my eyes on for a while for various reasons. I took them home and didn't touch them for the next 24 hours. I just let them sit there, and told myself I could read any of them I wanted and forget my TBR for a while. A couple days later I picked up The Selection by Kiera Cass and started reading. The next thing I knew I was 100 pages in, and I felt great.

Long story short, I'm now almost done with The Selection and have picked up the second book in its series to read once I'm done because I think it's safe to say that I'm hooked at this point. I've also started reading another library book at the same time...but I'll talk about that one in another post. The point is, during this mid-takedown crisis I've re-evaluated what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, the schedule I've set up for myself, and the rules and whatnot, and I've come to the current conclusion that while I should make reading my TBR books a priority, I shouldn't force myself to read them. That takes the fun out of it for me, and what's the point of going on an adventure if you're not going to have fun?

As it stands right now I haven't recreated a plan for taking down my TBR, but I do have a pretty loose structure set up that will get me through from now to the end of the summer (end of August), at which point I can take stock and set up a new Takedown if I want or perhaps try something else entirely. I'm not sure yet. Either way, it's safe to assume that I've forgone the previous setup I had as of my March wrap-up.

Pretty much my goal for right now is to finish the one TBR book I did already start this month at the very least, and then read at least two or three next month along with a couple of library books, if I so desire. In June I'll start my Skulduggery Pleasant readthrough, which I'm anticipating will take me all of June and July and probably the first half of August, taking into account both BookTubeAThon 2017 and my annual, week-long family vacation. If I can finish my current TBR by the end of the year at the very least, I think I'll be satisfied. (And at the rate I'm going, this will be the first year I complete my Goodreads Reading Challenge of 50 books in a year. That would be the best!)

So...yeah. Mid-TBR Takedown crisis, everyone. It's a legit thing. Who knew? Here's to hopefully not having another one! See you next time!