Reading Check In – April – June

Happy Sunday book friends! I realize July is already more than halfway over, but I still owed y’all a quarterly check in. In this one, I’ve of course read more books, worked a lot, but also have some fun life updates!

My reading has been all over the place lately. Some days I literally can’t stop reading, and other times I don’t pick up a book for days. I’m still ahead in my Goodreads Reading Challenge, so I got that going for me at least! reading check in

April

I was only able to read two books in April, which made it a very “meh” month. I don’t even know why, I wasn’t particularly busy and I also didn’t have any other obsessions at the time. Likely I spent most of my days scrolling through Instagram… Anyway, A Touch of Malice was merely okay. Not my favorite in the series, but I still look forward to reading the fourth book. Tress of the Emerald Sea was lots of fun, but took me longer to get through despite its short length. Very different from Sanderson’s normal work, but not any less well-written. I have a review for Tress here!

May

May was weirdly enough a very good reading month even though it was incredibly busy. I did have a new obsession this month, namely Hollow Knight. I think at one point I played for three days straight and barely got up to eat. There was also a three-day work trip to Brussels during which I read perhaps three pages. And I had a week of training near the end of May. So how I managed to read 7 books?? No clue. I won’t go into all of them, but Fourth Wing was my favorite (shocker) and House of Roots of Ruin was a NetGalley ARC for which I have a review here! House of Sky and Breath was a reread (I actually did like it better the second time, and with the CC3 cover reveal in the back of my mind I’m so stoked for January).

June

Not too many books in June, as you can see. Silver in the Bone took me a whole minute to get through. It wasn’t bad, but it felt clunky sometimes and I didn’t find most of the characters particularly likable. Perhaps book 2 will be better. I randomly picked up A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder and then a day later I already had to go back for book 2, which as you can see, I’ve also read. These were so fun to read! Book 3 is sitting on my shelves too, but I needed a little cleanser before moving on. I hope to read it sometimes soon, though.

Life Stuff

A couple of things:

I’m almost done with my current work placement and I’m surprisingly sad about it

I do not know how to save money and have been spending big on books (curse you, close-by American Book Center

My next placement will be in Washington D.C.

That’s right, I’m moving back to the States! I’ll hopefully be flying over at the end of August and I’ll say for six months. I’m soooo stoked!! I’ll live with college friends, and I already know I’m going to spend so much time doing all my favorite things, like visiting Barnes & Noble, and Target, and Michael’s and Barnes & Noble, and and and… you get the idea. August still seems so far away to me, but in literall a month I’ll be flying out… I still have so much stuff to do before then, send me good vibes pls.

And of course, not reading check-in is complete without an update on my book purchases this year:

• Words or Radiance (hardcover) – Brandon Sanderson
• Locklands – Robert Jackson Bennett
• Tress of the Emerald Sea – Brandon Sanderson
• Silver in the Bone – Alexandra Bracken
• The Foxglove King – Hannah Whitten
• How to Win the War on Truth – Samuel C. Spitale
• This is not Propaganda – Peter Pomerantsev
• Trust the Plan – Will Sommer
• Fourth Wing – Rebecca Yarros (I got it before it was mega hyped, hah!)
• The Isles of the Gods – Amie Kaufman
• Icebreaker – Hannah Grace
• Gothikana – RuNyx
• What Lies Beyond the Veil – Harper L. Woods
• Mysteries of Thorn Manor – Margaret Rogerson
• The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe – Steven Novella
• The Invisible Library – Genevieve Cogman
• A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder – Holly Jackson
• Good Girl, Bad Blood – Holly Jackson
• As Good as Dead – Holly Jackson
• Garden of the Cursed – Katy Rose Pool
• Little Thieves – Margaret Owen
• Realm Breaker – Victoria Aveyard
• Vespertine – Margaret Rogerson
• Heaven Official’s Blessing – Mo Xiang Tong Xiu/Tian Guan Ci Fu
• Velocity Weapon – Megan E. O’Keefe

Not me thinking I didn’t get that many books that past three months until I started making this list… Oh well, of these 25 books I’ve already read uhh… 12. That’s less than I thought, whoops.

And that’s it for this quarterly reading check in! How many books have you read so far this year? Are you on track with all your challenges? How about your favorites so far? Let me know!