May was a rough month for me. It was Jewish American Heritage month, and the majority of it involved seeing horrific hatred directed towards Jewish people, both online and in person. But, it did bring me closer to people within my community and help me create some new friendships. May honestly felt like it lasted for about 6 months, and I was so glad to say goodbye to it. Here’s hoping that June is a better month.

This year I vowed to focus on my goals for the year. So here we go:

• I got a bunch of new followers this month, bringing my total to 375! That means, I’ve gained 23 in the last month.
• Blog posts have continued daily, and scheduling in advance was especially helpful. Rather than just scheduling posts one day in advance, I’ve been scheduling posts multiple days in advance, so that I have the time to plan out thoughtful posts.
• I read 6 NetGalley ARCs and got my ratio to 83%, keeping it above 80% throughout the month! My State of the ARC accountability post has been helpful with that, and I’m going to continue whittling away at my long list of ARCs in June.
• As far as diversifying my reading: I’m still reading more adult books than YA, but I read more YA this month than I have been. I read more fantasy this month too, but read a lot of romance as well. Half of the books I read featured a BIPOC character, 10 had an LGBTQ+ character, and and 11 were written by BIPOC authors. I also made sure to include books by Jewish authors and Jewish OwnVoices books in my reading this month, especially since I didn’t see much love being directed this way outside of the Jewish community.

Here’s my breakdown of monthly/cumulative totals for May:

May Totals

• Books read: 26
• Books DNF’d: 1
• Pages read: 5,271
• Hours listened: 74 hours, 29 minutes, 25 seconds
• Average pages: 292.8
• Average hours listened: 10 hours, 38 minutes, 29 seconds

Cumulative Averages

• Days per book: 2.98
• Pages read per day: 189.98
• Books read per month: 24
• DNF’d books per month: 0.8

Genres Read in May:

• Fantasy: 9
• General Fiction: 1
• Graphic Novel: 1
• Historical Fiction: 2
• Mystery/Suspense: 3
• Romance/Erotica: 10

Backlist vs. New Releases

• Backlist books: 11
• 2021 releases: 15

Fiction Vs. Non-Fiction

• Fiction: 25
• Nonfiction: 1

Format Read:

• Print: 8
• Digital: 11
• Audio: 7

Age Range

• Adult: 14
• YA: 11
• MG: 1

My favorite books of the month were The Goldfinch and Today Tonight Tomorrow.

Here’s what I read in May:

• Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return by Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis #3-4)
• The Lost Home by Cait Marie (The Nihryst #0.2)
• The Lost Honor by Cait Marie (The Nihryst #0.3)
• Unravel the Dusk by Elizabeth Lim (The Blood of Stars #2)
• The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
• The Secret Keeper of Jaipur by Alka Joshi (The Henna Artist #2) (ARC)
• Kidnapping the Duchess by Gina L. Maxwell (GLM Steamy Shots #2)
• Charming the Prince by Gina L. Maxwell (GLM Steamy Shots #3)
• Today Tonight Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon
• The Children’s Blizzard by Melanie Benjamin
• The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid (ARC)

• One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston (ARC)
• The Soulmate Equation by Christina Lauren (ARC)
• The Sisters of the Winter Wood by Rena Rossner

• Happy Endings by Thien-Kim Lam (ARC)  
• That Thing About Bollywood by Supriya Kelkar (ARC)
• Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan
• The Anatomy of Desire by L.R. Dorn (ARC)
• To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han (To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before #1)
• The Library of the Dead by T.L. Huchu (Edinburgh Nights #1) (ARC)
• Murder Lo Mein by Vivien Chien (A Noodle Shop Mystery #3)

• A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark (Dead Djinn Universe #1) (ARC)
• Blazewrath Games by Amparo Ortiz (Blazewrath Games #1)

• Romancing Mister Bridgerton by Julia Quinn (Bridgertons #4)

• Iced in Paradise by Naomi Hirahara (Leilani Santiago Hawai’i Mystery #1)

• You Have a Match by Emma Lord

I also beta read an awesome book called Making the Play by Cait Marie that is coming out at the end of June – so keep an eye out for it!

So, that was my May. How was yours?