Quarterly Review /#3: July - September 2019

This last quarter was a good one. I met or exceeded a few of my goals. Next year my goals will be more defined and better. I hope to have another good year in 2020. 

* * *

1) Meet/Exceed 2019 Goodreads Goal: As of the writing of this particular post, I am at 57/50. Goal was met in late August/early September, though I do not recall quite the proper date. This is a goal I can check off in my notebook. I have exceeded my Goodreads Goal for 2019. 

2) Review 80% of the Books I Read: As far as I recall (and after checking GR), I have reviewed 85% of the books I have read so far this year. I hope to keep this up for the rest of the year. So far, so good. I just have to review the books I've finished in September.

3) Enter & Win at Least One Camp NaNo & NaNoWriMo: So this goal is good so far. I won Camp NaNo July with 37,000/30,000 words. I did good. I have my plans for November and I think I will be able to actually hit 50,000 words (or better) when the month finally rolls around because I have been not allowing myself to start writing the story early. I am forcing myself to wait until 01 November 2019. 

4) Stick to Book Buying Restriction: This was still a failure. I totally didn't stick to it at all. I have to come up with a reasonable way to do this. Perhaps a 1:1 or 1:3 ratio and I can only purchase books at the end of the month when I can tally my reading total for the year. I will probably figure out how many I can buy using glass baubles again like I did in 2018. 

5) Publish Two Stories by Any Means: I have put up two stories so far on FanFiction, so I guess that means this is a success? They are published for public viewing.

Currently Reading: 22 to 28 September 2019

Currently Reading

- Escaping from Houdini by Kerri Maniscalco (27%)

- Where the Crawdad's Sing by Delia Owens (31%)

- The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon (35%)

- Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James (58%)

* * *

OWLS Read Along

1: Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

2: Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

3: Every Day by David Levithan 

4: Wicked Fox by Kat Cho

5: The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi

6: Illuminae by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

7: Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James

8: The Chestnut Man by Søren Sveistrup

9: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

10: Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

11: Scythe by Neal Shusterman

12: Escaping from Houdini by Kerri Maniscalco

BooksandTea Group Book

13: The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

NetGalley e-galleys

14: She's My Dad by Jonathan S. Williams 

15: The Weight of a Soul by Elizabeth Tammi

16: Lion's Head Revisited by Jeffery Round

17: The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow

* * *

I finished The Chestnut Man and I have to say while I did think that the suspect was part of the group they were, I was not expecting it to be the one it turned out to be. I thought it was someone else completely in that particular circle of people. It was really good. If Sveistrup writes more novels, I will happily pick them up.

There was a book recommended to me on Goodreads the other day, and curious at the description, I picked it up. It was a bad idea. I get that a lot of people want to be published authors. But if your book is fifty pages or fewer, has no editing done whatsoever, and what plot there is makes no sense, do not publish it. I was recommended this book, In a Quarter of a Second by Anita Kirk, and I absolutely hated it. It was the most disturbing, poorly written nonsense I've ever read. It took me over a week to read because I could only handle so much of it at a time. There are a bunch of teens doing things that aren't likely to be legal in six years. They give alcohol to dogs, they kill people while having the cure for the people on their persons, they do all of this random unrelated stuff that has nothing at all to do with the plot. There is even a scene where a fifteen year old survives being stabbed in the forehead. THE FOREHEAD. I don't even know what the plot was supposed to be. The only rating this book has is 5/5 stars, but that was also from the author. I do not suggest reading this at all!!

Currently Reading: 15 to 21 September 2019

Currently Reading

- The Chestnut Man by Søren Sveistrup (57%)

- Where the Crawdad's Sing by Delia Owens (31%)

- The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon (35%)

- Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James (41%)

* * *

OWLS Read Along

1: Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

2: Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

3: Every Day by David Levithan 

4: Wicked Fox by Kat Cho

5: The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi

6: Illuminae by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

7: Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James

8: The Chestnut Man by Søren Sveistrup

9: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

10: Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

11: Scythe by Neal Shusterman

12: Escaping from Houdini by Kerri Maniscalco

BooksandTea Group Book

13: The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

NetGalley e-galleys

14: She's My Dad by Jonathan S. Williams 

15: The Weight of a Soul by Elizabeth Tammi

16: Lion's Head Revisited by Jeffery Round

17: The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow

* * *

I am making progress on my NaNoWriMo project for the year. A friend of mine posted an intriguing one-line premise and my mind latched on and refused to let go. She mentioned something about a penal colony on an island with an active volcano called Brimstone Gorge. No mention of literally anything else. No name for the island, no name for the mountain that is the volcano...I have built a corresponding story. I'm going to run with it and make up my own nonsense to go with it. The cover to the left here is my working cover/title. I don't think these will be the final versions, but I just had to add it and have it there. Hopefully this one actually makes it to final draft!

Totally just now looked at the number of channels I follow on Booktube...452. Yeah. I like to watch book channels. I still don't post on my own channel, though. I am considering it. I have to work up the courage before I do anything. I really have to get over my stage fright.

I'm slowly getting through The Chestnut Man by Søren Sveistrup. There were a few things that make no sense to me. Like things that a competent police force would know and follow up on that this one seems to just not want to be involved in. I am assuming that's just a Danish thing that I don't understand? Here's hoping. Hess appears to be a lot deeper than people realize. It was claimed that he was one of the best detectives on the force before moving the Hague (and subsequently back to the Murder Squad). I like it so far, but I'm concerned with the way they are ignoring leads. 

Decided on a new TBR tactic for next year that involves me cataloging all of the books I own. Yes, all. That means print and digital books will all be put into a huge spreadsheet on my Google Sheets and then I will draw two numbers each month. I will use those numbers to correlate to four books (two from the print list and two from the digital list) with the fifth book of my month being a mood read. Right now I'm up to TK print books and TK digital books. 

Currently Reading 08 to 14 September 2019

Currently Reading

- The Chestnut Man by Søren Sveistrup (32%)

- Where the Crawdad's Sing by Delia Owens (31%)

- The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon (35%)

- Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James (41%)

* * *

OWLS Read Along

1: Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

2: Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

3: Every Day by David Levithan 

4: Wicked Fox by Kat Cho

5: The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi

6: Illuminae by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

7: Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James

8: The Chestnut Man by Søren Sveistrup

9: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

10: Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

11: Scythe by Neal Shusterman

12: Escaping from Houdini by Kerri Maniscalco

BooksandTea Group Book

13: The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

NetGalley e-galleys

14: She's My Dad by Jonathan S. Williams 

15: The Weight of a Soul by Elizabeth Tammi

16: Lion's Head Revisited by Jeffery Round

17: The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow

* * *

I finally managed to get my hands on the fifth (and sixth) volume of My Hero Academia by Kohei Horikoshi. Every single time I went into either Books-a-Million or Barnes & Noble (I dislike ordering books online unless I absolutely have to because I don't trust the mailing system sometimes), they never had the volumes in stock! Sometimes they would have volumes 4 and 6, so I was like "Grrrrr...." I was so excited when I went in and looked at the shelf and there it was.

Huzzah! Finished the last "required" book for my OWLs for Journalist. I will keep reading for OWLs now and see what else I can get into. I think currently I'll work on the Charms book because it looked really interesting...when I'm not writing the next installment of my own silly story about a bunch of doofuses who do not know how to adventure.

Reading The Chestnut Man and the main female detective person makes a clear mention of the fact that she does not find sexual/romantic relationships with coworkers appealing. Why on earth does she feel the need to explicitly tell us this? Is it leading up to her actually developing a romance with what's his face, Genz? Second thing that comes to mind right away: Is there significance to the loss of the one victim's hand? I don't get how it's important, but then I may just have missed some little detail earlier. So far so good though. I am enjoying it.

I did it. I did the thing that I didn't think I was going to do. I bought The Rise of Avatar Kyoshi by F.C. Yee. I really enjoyed The Epic Crush of Genie Lo, and I'm hoping that the writing style continues in that vein so that I will really really love this book. It does look very good and I cannot wait to start it (once I finish the crazy load I gave myself!)

End of Year Freak-Out Tag

I stumbled across this tag on Ariel Bissett's channel while perusing the internet, a terrible past time, I know. Anyway, this is my version of the tag...

Are there any books you started this year that you need to finish? 

Quite a few. The four that is highest up on my list of those are IT by Stephen King, The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon, Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en, and The Original Illustrated Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle (which I started in like, 2018...don't judge). I'm an irrationally slow reader, so big books tend to take me a very long time to read.

Do you have an autumnal book to transition into the end of the year? 

Not really? I don't do transitional books. Unless you want to count the most recent book I picked up from Book of the Month club which is a thriller. I got The Chestnut Man by Søren Sveistrup and I guess since it's September and the start of the chilly season of the year, a thriller is a good transition from summer reads to fall/winter. 

Is there a new release you're still waiting for? 

Technically yes. It is out already, but I haven't got my own copy yet. I'm excited to get my hands on a copy of Kerri Maniscalco's most recent publication Capturing the Devil which came out a few days ago at the uploading of this particular blog post. I somehow knew it was going to be yellow. I figured either yellow or orange because we had red, blue, and green. Naturally the final volume would be yellow. 

What are three books you want to read before the end of the year?

Oh lord. That's a loaded question. I have a few reading challenges going that were adopted from previous months. One that I'm very excited about reading is The Chestnut Man by Søren Sveistrup because it looks amazing and it just intrigued me. It's hard for me to pick books that I want to read by the end of the year becuase I can be such a mood reader that I come up with TBRs and then don't read any of the books from them despite reading like thirty books....I can't really think of any others that I want to read before the end of the year that badly.

Is there a book you think could still shock you and become your favorite book of the year?

Again, I don't know. I like going in blind and having no idea where the story will take me. Of the books I'm currently reading, I'm expecting the book to shock me probably to be IT because right now I'm not impressed by it. It's not a scary book to me. Then again, I grew up during an era where books like that weren't scary. I started IT after reading the Harry Potter series, so now I can't think of IT as anything other than a boggart attacking Muggles. It lost it's fear factor. (Also, I make sport of scaring the employees at haunted trails, I got a murder hobo clown to shake their head and walk away saying "Now that's scary...") 

Have you already started making reading plans for 2020?

Yes, actually. I have started thinking about how many books I want to read next year. I've also been thinking about how I want to divvy up those books and monthly goals. Right now I'm thinking about upping my Goodreads goal to 60 books next year and read a minimum of five books each month.

Currently Reading: 01 to 07 September 2019

Currently Reading

- The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi (24%)
- Where the Crawdad's Sing by Delia Owens (31%)
- The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon (35%)
- Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James (41%)

* * *

Once again, the books I'm not actively reading this month are not going to be included on my list. However, the books that I am actively reading will be there. There are sixteen (16!!) books on my reading list for this upcoming month because I'm doing the OWLs, and I have other things that I want to read books for that I don't remember and then the BooksandTea read along is Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon. At least I'm a good chunk of the way into that one before I start the month.

I'm deciding yet if I want to actually do a read-along in December or if I want to just take a break and allow myself to either not read anything or read whatever as a mood month. I'm not sure yet what my plans will be. It's still a toss up. Though I'm probably going to just let it be a relaxed month.

I have officially made it! At 12:06a on Sunday, September 1st, I reached my Goodreads goal of 50/50. I usually don't see 50 for another week or two yet, when I actually see it. There have been years where 40 was a hard stretch. I have plans to get through the rest of the year reading a total of an additional....76 books. That's so not going to happen, but I'll still make a valid effort at it. Maybe I can at least make it through the other 12 for this month and the 2 that I have to review in October and November. Yes. I can do the thing. 

I am not sure why, but I have decided to actually just incrementally increase my read-a-thon challenges. You all know that it's 12 in September. In October, I've decided to do the Read Voltron read-a-thon (that is technically happening in September...) and these are what I have chosen for it: 

Shiro

• The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzie Lee
• The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh
• Act of God by Jill Ciment
• A Danger to Herself and Others by Alyssa Sheinmel
• The City & the City by Herman Mieville

Keith

•  The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
• The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan
• Proxy by Alex London
• The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman
• Dragon Pearl by Yoon Ha Lee

Lance

• The DUFF by Kody Keplinger
• Red by Jordan Summers
• Frog Music by Emma Donoghue
• Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Pidge

• Warcross by Marie Lu
• Matched by Ally Condie
• Archenemies by Marissa Meyer
• The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch
• The Reptile Room by Lemony Snicket

Hunk

• Eve by Wm. Paul Young
• Recursion by Blake Crouch 
• Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
• The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
• A Frozen Heart by Elizabeth Rudnick

Do I remember what any of the prompts were? Not a chance. I remember a select handful. Like they each had a prompt to read a book that was their Paladin color (black, blue, red, green, yellow) and Hunk had one about food.

Then in November (yes, during NaNoWriMo) I intend to up my goal AGAIN to read 36 books. This is why I plan to just allow December to be chill. I will ramp myself up into so many books that when I try to actually get through them, I will cause myself horrible anxiety. 

Decided that instead of reading whatever I felt like during the OWLs from the reading list, I would actually read the OWLs related to the career I wanted first, then go on to read other books in the list. That way I can be sure to at least get close to the career I want and then worry about possibly being able to apply for other careers on top of that.  

So I lied, earlier, about the relaxed December. I found another read along (taking place in September, but I disregard that nonsense) called the Map of the Soul Read-a-Thon. I missed the part where the BookTuber stated the inspiration for the read along so it took me a while to realize it was based on the one and only BTS album I happen to have, Persona: Map of the Soul. I have decided to participate and here are the prompts and my choices for said prompts: 

1) Persona: Own Voice that Represents You - For this I sort of cheated and went with They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera because the boys are LGBT+ (at least one of them is), Adam Silvera is LGBT+, and I am LGBT+. It seems like a bit of a cop-out, but it was all I could think of.

2) Boy with Luv: "Love" in the title - For this I have chosen literally the only book I own (I think) that has the word love in the title, Love and Friendship by Jane Austen. It's, I believe, a bunch of shorts and/or unfinished works? I don't know. 

3) Mikrokosmos: A book from an author that changed your life - I panicked and went for Magnus Chase and the Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan. I was sort of slumpy two years ago after my grandma had passed and I wasn't reading much until I stumbled quite accidentally upon Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series. I blew through the entire Percy Jackson and started the Heroes of Olympus. Then I read the Kane Chronicles and just couldn't get enough of books again. Riordan helped pull me from my slump so I'm going with the first book in a series I haven't read yet. 

4) Make It Right: A book written by more than one author - I went for Modern Irish Short Stories edited by Frank O'Connor because it is a bunch of shorts written by many Irish authors. It is one I've been meaning to read for a while and now I've finally gotten around to including it on a TBR. 

5) Home: Book with your bias - Okay, so, I had to actually think hard to even remember what "bias" was referring to in the K-Pop world. It's your favorite member of the band. Seeing as I couldn't remember what the word meant, that clearly means I have no bias. So instead of picking just one member of the band and going with it, I've decided to read Ready Player One by Ernest Cline and use the photo strip thing from the photo book itself as my bookmark because it has all seven members of BTS on it. Cheating? Probably. Do I care? Not a bit. 

6) Jamais Vu: Mental health rep - After an hour of Googling 'mental health rep books' on my tablet, I have come up with We Are the Ants by Sean David Hutchinson because this one kid faces the mental anguish of being the deciding factor in whether humans live or die. I think? I don't know. I saw the words "mental health representation" in the synopsis and ran with it. I got nothing. 

7) Dionysus: A diverse book or one featuring Greek mythology - True to my ironic self, the one I've chosen for this prompt is Dionysus by Walter F. Otto. I thought it to be an excellent choice in book if I do say so. The book itself explores the cult and myth of the Greek deity Dionysus, God of Wine, Revelry, and Protection of Children (yeah, that last one always throws me, too, who knew?).

Got approved for the last galley that I was in for. I can't wait. I'll try to read them at work, since I can easily carry the Kindle around with me as opposed to the OWL/NEWT/Voltron/BTS book for the read alongs. 

I may or may not have done a stupid thing. I'm not sure if I have or haven't yet. I signed up for Book of the Month club. It's just more stuff that I have to pay for once a month. Go figure. It's not terribly expensive. They had a book I was interested in so I decided I would give it a go. It couldn't hurt and I can cancel it at any point. Hopefully I actually like it and want to continue with it. I should try to read the book within a few days of getting it? I'll have to for the one prompt for NEWTs currently. It is the last book I acquired (for the time) and thus it will go toward one of the NEWT challenges.

TBR update for this week's blog. Each week of the blog, I'll put this in and just strike out the books I've finished. November is going to be bananas with the bookish list I'll have. 

OWLS Read Along

1: Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

2: Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

3: Every Day by David Levithan 

4: Wicked Fox by Kat Cho

5: The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi

6: Illuminae by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

7: Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James

8: The Chestnut Man by Søren Sveistrup

9: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

10: Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

11: Scythe by Neil Shusterman

12: Escaping from Houdini by Kerri Maniscalco

BooksandTea Group Book

13: The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

NetGalley e-galleys

14: She's My Dad by Jonathan S. Williams 

15: The Weight of a Soul by Elizabeth Tammi

16: Lion's Head Revisited by Jeffery Round

17: The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow

Now I'm thinking about putting my Currently Reading posts weekly instead of bi-weekly. It seems that recently I've had a lot more to say than normal. My blog posts have been crazy long and they all only encompass two weeks. Perhaps for the last third of the year, I'll try to post my currently reading blog weekly. It will do. It helps that the most recent week. If it work, I'll do that for next year.

So many things on my mind all at once. I'm trying to get through the books for OWLs, then I got an idea for another fiction novel, which means that that took over my mind the other day so I got no reading done. If I manage to finish The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi I will be 1/4 the way through the OWLs, but a book behind? I need to do 4 books a week, and I'm sitting at 2 right now. Bluh. I'm stuck between do I want to bring just OWL books for my weekend off from work or do I want to bring one OWL and the BooksandTea book?

I've decided to stop entering Goodreads Giveaways. My goal is complete. I have won an ARC and a regular book. I have so many (literally thousands) of books of my own to read that I don't need to be entering giveaways to get more. Now I have the task of getting rid of all the books from my shelf that I don't want on there. I only put up books I physically own/have read/am reading (library books).

I'm stuck. I really really want to start The Chestnut Man by Soren Sveistrup, but here's the problem: I have 17 books on my TBR. The only way I could read it is to replace a book on my OWLs list with it. It could take the place of Enigma as the adult book.

That's the end for this week, see you again next Sunday~

September 2019 To-Be-Read

Welcome back to the blog! Today is an experiment day. Let's see how this goes...

I thought I would start posting a To Be Read monthly post as well. I'm not sure if I should include it on the end of the monthly wrap up? Like "September Wrap Up and October To Be Read"....we'll try it separately at first and see what happens. I don't know how well this will work, so we will only do September for now and see what we end up with. If it holds, we'll do another in October. 

For September, I want to read 17 books. I won't post reasons why I want to read them here, but they will have their own reviews and or haul reasons in September's Wrap Up and Book Haul at the end of the month. For now, just enjoy the torture that I put myself through!

OWLS Read Along

1: Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

2: Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

3: Every Day by David Levithan 

4: Wicked Fox by Kat Cho

5: The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi

6: Illuminae by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

7: Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James

8: The Chestnut Man by Søren Sveistrup 

9: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

10: Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

11: Scythe by Neil Shusterman

12: Escaping from Houdini by Kerri Maniscalco

BooksandTea Group Book

13: The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

NetGalley e-galleys

14: She's My Dad by Jonathan S. Williams 

15: The Weight of a Soul by Elizabeth Tammi

16: Lion's Head Revisited by Jeffery Round

17: The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow