January Wrap Up - Three Excellent YAs

I’m exhausted right now. But, I have to wait for my daughter to get out of rehearsal, anyway so I might as well tell you why by Book January sucked so hard.

First off, I have only completed 6 books this month, three since the outbox post a couple of weeks ago. This isn’t really a low number and I would never think this isn’t “Enough” books. It’s just well below by average for the last couple of years. However, I’m trying to take it easy on myself and switch my way of thinking about THE NUMBER. My goal is to read fewer books more mindfully this year. My guess is that the goal will wax and wane like so many others.

All three of these books earn a We Need Diverse Books badge!! Whoot whoot! Here's what I've read:

Read Harder - ROC: A Book about War

Last week was the first meeting for the Read Harder Rochester book group! We had four whole people show up! Whoott!!

The group is new and each month we plan to get together to talk about two tasks from the challenge. This month’s categories up for discussion were: A Book about War and A LGBTQ Romance. This post is about the former.

Read Harder - Roc: An LGBTQ Romance

Last week was the first meeting for the Read Harder Rochester book group! We had four whole people show up! Whoott!!

This month’s categories up for discussion were: A Book about War and A LGBTQ Romance. This post is about the latter.

 An interesting point that came up doing the discussion about this category is that all members agreed that it would be important, moving forward, to choose books in the “diversity” categories that were written by authors from the under-represented group. Not all of our books this time reflect this approach and the readers could tell that an "insider" voice would probably have been better.

Read Harder 2017

Last year I did a bunch of reading challenges and have since decided that keeping up with them was too much of a chore. I do plan to do a few Readathons throughout the year but Book Riot’s Read Harder challenge is the only reading challenge that I’ve officially decided to do for 2017, though Book Riot recently posted the 59 Book Fandom reading challenge that I might check in with unofficially and I haven't decided about participating in the Review Diverse Books challenge, yet. As a blogging challenge specifically, that one would be a new thing for me. Appealing or terrifying? Hard to say!

I've participated the last three years, failing by two categories (THE HARD ONES!) each time. This year, I've teamed up with other local readers to meet each month to talk about two categories to encourage me to get those books read. 

Here's the official Book Riot Link

Here's the PDF you can download to play along

Sarah (over at Sarah Says Read) and I went through the the 24 tasks and paired them based on "easiness." Hard tasks were basically those that might require more research to know if it will work, be harder to find, or have more difficult content. We tried to pair each hard task with an "easy" task and put all the hard tasks earlier in the year. Here's how it came out and my running log:

Outbox: Mid- January - Slowing Down and Abandoning Books

I’m still trying to move away from the book- sprint mentality, this urgency to read books quickly that sometimes gets in the way of fully engaging in a book. This is especially a problem with longer books, because I start to feel that the book is taking up too much time. But really. There is no prize for reading the most books… I mean, not any prizes that I am actually competing for.

But still. It feels weird to say that I have only completed three books for January so far. WTF!? What a slacker! Also, though, Sister Act rehearsals have started, which cuts into my reading time. I have also put two books back on my To-Read shelf. Not finishing books that I’m not feeling is something I am trying to let myself do more often. The two books I abandoned this month seem like really good books. Really. It's me, not them. 

So here’s a book update for January so far: The Read, The Abandoned, and the Currently Reading.

Broadway to Books: Matilda

This post was originally part of a larger post published over at Book Bloggers International on July 25, 2016.

Broadway to Books is a (possibly) unique feature that I do that I originated as a guest post (linked above) that was way too long and involved. I have pared it down and am hoping to make it a regular thing. Without further fondue...

MATILDA

Theme: Girls overcoming hard situations and finding their strength (especially against jerk adults)

Book Tag: Mary Poppins

Alrighty, the book tweep behind Let’s Book About It created this Mary Poppins book tag. Y’all! MARY FRICKING POPPINS! So, obviously, not only am I doing the tag but I will be incorporating asides from my time as a member of the ensemble in Mary Poppins the Musical that I was in in 2015. That’s right. I do not let the opportunity to talk about a show pass me up… no, siree.

The questions include facts about the book and the movie, BTW. LesGo.

Clear A Shelf Wrapup and December Outbox

HAPPY NEW YEAR Y’ALL!!

It’s hard to believe that it is 2017. My guess is that it feels a lot like 2016. Here’s hoping that we aren’t embarking on the beginning of the end of the world as we know it. I will be honest, though. If the dystopian future is about to happen, I am definitely going to be part of the over- controlled (but possibly rebellious) group within the walls who have electricity and central heating. I ain’t gonna lie. I don’t like temporary camping. I definitely wouldn’t survive as a member of the Resistance holed up in the woods.

Anywhoo…

We all know that outbox posts are harder if they cover the whole month. And, yet, of all the posts I did in December, none of them were outbox posts. Welp. And because I don’t want to do a separate post for the Clear A Shelf challenge, I’m smooshing that in here, too!

Here are the highlights for the month.