The Looooong and the Short of It with a Giveaway: May 2023 Wrap-Up Post and What to Expect in June

May was mostly better. Although I ended up with both dogs getting sick at the beginning of the month, getting a sinus infection myself, for the most part things were back to as close to normal as possible. Both parents were home from the hospital, and we got to take our annual Memorial Day weekend trip to Branson, along with my cousin and her new husband and step-daughter for the first time in a few years.

I think thanks to my Branson trip and things just kind of settling down this month, I got a lot more reading done this month! I finished 21 books! Wow! Now to be fair, one of those was a novella, and 5 were audiobooks, one a shorter audiobook – and one of those audiobooks I’d technically started in November and had listened in between other audiobooks.

• # of pages read: 4723
• Amount of time spent listening to audiobooks – Some of the time on one of these was last month technically, but I don’t count them till I finish. So my time spent was 40 hours and 22 minutes for 5 audiobooks. The drive to and from Branson gave me lots of listening time!

Here are my stats from Storygraph:

May Reviews

Of the 15 I listed specifically in last month’s wrap-up, I read 13 of those. One of the 15 didn’t end up being a review tour, just a promo. And another one I didn’t get to till the end of the month, so it carried over into June. But I got all my actual reads for the month reviewed and posted on my blog!

• [4 May] Four Found Dead by Natalie D. Richards ★★★½
• [8 May] Tough Cookie by Talia Hunter ★★★★½
• [16 May] The Vinyl Frontier by Lola West ★★★★★
• [18 May] I’ll Always Be With You by Monica Murphy ★★★★
• [18 May] Neutral Zone by Teagan Hunter ★★★★
• [19 May] Can't Fight It by Allie Winters ★★★★
• [20 May] I Want It That Way by Karen Grey ★★★½
• [22 May] Letter Late Than Never by Lauren Connolly ★★★★½
• [23 May] Planes, Trains, and All the Feels by Livy Hart ★★★★½
• [24 May] How to Win the Girl by Sara Ney ★★★★
• [25 May] Troy Story by Carla Luna ★★★★
• [28 May] Her Good Side by Rebekah Weatherspoon ★★★★★
• [29 May] The Problem With Pretending by Emma Hart ★★★★★
• [30 May] Barbarian Alien by Ruby Dixon ★★★★
• [30 May] It Starts with Us by Colleen Hoover ★★★★★
• [30 May] It Looks Like Us by Alison Ames ★★★★½
• [30 May] Better Than The Prom by Lynn Painter ★★★★½
• [30 May] A Furry Faux Paw by Jessica Kara ★★★★½
• [30 May] Love at First Psych by Cara Bastone ★★★★
• [30 May] I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys ★★★★★
• [31 May] Look Smart by Aly Stiles ★★★★★

Challenge Wrap-Up

I am still working on the books for the Gateway committee, only the list has been narrowed down to the top rated 50 to try to get narrowed down to 30 before the reader selectors start reading in the fall. My goal for the year was 12, I got 4 in January, 4 in February, 3 in March, 3 in April, and I added another one this month, beating my goal! All of these have been reviewed in the monthly L-L-L Little Review posts I’ve been doing.

1. The Hunger Between Us by Marina Scott
2. Twisted Love by Ana Huang
3. Lord of the Fly Fest by Goldy Moldavy
4. Always Jane by Jenn Bennett
5. My Second Impression Of You by Michelle I. Mason
6. Gold Mountain by Betty G. Yee
7. Spicy Pickle by J.J. Knight
8. My Mechanical Romance by Alexene Farol Follmuth
9. Forging Silver Into Stars by Brigid Kemmerer
10. Rima’s Rebellion by Margarita Engle
11. The Lost Dreamer by Lizz Huerta
12. One for All by Lillie Lainoff
13. The Dachshund Wears Prada by Stefanie London
14. Beyond the Wand by Tom Felton
15. I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys

• Blogging:
  • 1. Keep my Netgalley percentage up to 80%. Still at 79%.
  • 2. Discussion Challenge: None in May.
• Reading:
  • 1. As always is my Goodreads goal of 200 books. I am actually a little ahead this month, now 2 books ahead I think.
  • 2. My TBR Challenge above.
• Writing – Still didn’t get anything done this month.
• Book Buying Ban – I started pretty good this month, only $14.95 for my Audible credit. But then there was a sale on Audible and I spent $5.99 for a book. I also got a $10 coupon/credit for Audible, and used it, and had a credit for my Discover cashback and I used that to buy a book on Amazon. But then I ended up buying three books from Amazon at the end of the month with my online class extra stipend. I decided I deserved the books. So I actually ended up besides the credits paying $67 for books this month.

What to Expect in June

June won’t be as relaxing as normal since I’ll be doing summer school, but the money will be helpful for my trip as well as things that seem to be popping up that I’m going to need to do sooner rather than later around my house. However I still hope to get a lot of reading done!

Here is my proposed TBR for June:

1. The Warning by Kristy Acevedo – this is an ARC from the publisher. Should be reading probably as I post this and the review will go up the first weekend of June
2. The Chaperone by M. Hendrix – another ARC from the same publisher as the first book, hoping to post a review on the 5th
3. Royally in Trouble by Meghan Quinn – an e-galley for the author’s review team, should post a review on the pub date of the 6th
4. Ciao for Now by Kate Bromley – an e-galley I got on Netgalley and hope to post a review on the 7th
5. Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood – an e-galley from Edelweiss, plan to post a review on the 8th or 9th
6. Kismat Connection by Ananya Devarajan – an ARC that I think I won on Bookish First? Hope to post the review on the 10th
7. Sanctuary for Seers by Kathleen Baldwin – I’m hoping to be on a review tour for this, and the review will be sometime the middle two weeks of June
8. A Love Catastrophe by Helena Hunting – reading for a review for the author’s review team, should post on the 13th
9. Scotlander by Sheila McClure – reading and posting a review for a blog tour on the 15th
10. The Love Theorem by Camilla Isley – reading and posting a review for a blog tour on the 17th
11. The Wedding Confession by J.J. Knight – I won an ARC from the author and I should be reading and posting a review on the 20th
12. The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston – I might read the e-galley of this from the publisher if I have time to fit it in and review on the 22nd
13. Dead Eleven by Jimmy Juliano – while I haven’t been reading a ton of adult fiction other than romance, the publisher reached out with an ARC of this I think, and it sounded good so I signed up! Hope to read and post my review on the 24th.
14. The Shadow Sister by Lily Meade – an ARC from the publisher that I hope to read and post a review of on the 27th
15. Lion’s Legacy by Lev A.C. Rosen – I’m supposed to be getting an ARC of this from the publisher, and I plan to read and review it on the 29th
16. How Not to Date a Pop Star by Jada Trainor – well, the publisher offered me an e-galley of this and I might read and post a review at the beginning of July. However the ratings are really low on Goodreads, like 2.17 stars, so I don’t know how I will do with it once I get started.
17. Any other audiobooks I listen to, which might be a lot of the books for my Gateway committee as I try to get the list of 50 finished up.
18. Any other of the Gateway books that I just read the copies I have.

Final Thoughts

So how was your May? How are you doing on your reading/blogging/personal goals for 2023 so far? We are almost halfway through the year now! What are you looking forward to in June? I’m looking forward to the end of summer school, and getting ready for my Scotland trip at the beginning of July!

Giveaway

Below are ARCs I’ve finished and also a couple of finished copies, the winner will get to pick out 3 books from the list, and I add any others I finish between the time I post this and the end of the month. Now that The Book Depository is closing, the only way I can really do international is if I can send you a $10 Amazon gift card somehow, so we’ll see how that works! Just fill out the Rafflecopter below the picture. My April Wrap-Up post got over 100 entries, so I picked two winners!

a Rafflecopter giveaway