May was rough – I got hit with a depression spiral, the changing weather has dialled my fibro up to 11, and I switched hosting services without really being prepared for what that would mean. But I survived!

ARCs Received

SO MANY AMAZING ARCS!!! I didn’t expect to get approved for half of these, but I figured it does no harm to ask, so I did! EEE!

Read

20 books read this month – as many as April, but with fewer novellas this time!

New-to-me favourites were the Inda series by Sherwood Smith (The Fox, King’s Shield, and Treason’s Shore were books 2-4 of the series) which completely blew me away and had me glued to the pages; Osmo Unknown and the Eightpenny Woods, the latest from Catherynne Valente and a book with a huge heart and an enormous amount of whimsy; and Daughter of Redwinter, which kind of came out of nowhere to knock my socks off.

The King of Infinite Space and Some By Virtue Fall were both brilliantly fun as well.

But I didn’t have it in me to track my reading too closely this month, and without conscious effort otherwise, I didn’t read anything by BIPOC authors (unless The Dawnhounds count? I’m uncertain). Which is appalling, and an extra-disappointing drop after my record-breaking reads last month.

I hate that it requires concious effort and attention to read diversely. Urgh. It should be automatic, and easy. Am I really more drawn to stories told by white authors than others? Or is the dearth of BIPOC authors seriously so bad that no one is publishing BIPOC authors writing the kind of stories I like? I don’t like either of these options!

Reviewed

This was an absolutely terrible month for reviews – I only managed to write two. (More got posted, but most of them were written last month.) Sigh. Definitely gotta step up my game in June!

DNF-ed

One less DNF than last month, anyway! But I have to admit to being pretty disappointed by We All Fall Down and The Book of Gothel, especially – I had such high hopes for both!

ARCs Outstanding

A few of these I’ve now read, and need to write up into reviews, but 16 is still quite a lot. I’m not feeling overwhelmed, though, which is nice.

Misc

I didn’t manage to participate in Wyrd & Wonder much after all, but I did finish and post Ten (Even More) Ridiculously Cool Magic Systems and (Even More Of) The Coolest Magical Abilities in Fiction! Which I’m very happy about, because featuring magic systems and magical abilities has become an annual tradition for me.

Looking Forward

June is PRIDE MONTH, which means a ton of epic queer releases on top of all the other books I’m excited for! New books by KIT WHITFIELD and MILES CAMERON, hell to the yes!!! And I already know Wrath Goddess Sing and The Dawnhounds are wonderful, and can’t wait for everyone else to know it too.

Here’s to June being full of rainbows and brilliant books!