What did you read in May?

[litskispeciality]

Ratings, recommendations? If you have a goal are you on track?

[ufcasey]

1 star
Garrett by Sawyer Bennett

2.5 stars
Hello Stranger (#4 in series) by Lisa Kleypas

3 stars
Glory in Death (#2 in series) by J.D. Robb
Edgedancer (#2.5 in series) by Brandon Sanderson

3.5 stars
Every Note Played by Lisa Genova
The Care and Feeding of Griffins by R. Lee Smith
Before Jamaica Lane (#3 in series) by Samantha Young

4 stars
All Things Cease to Appear by Elizabeth Brundage
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See
Everything Here Is Beautiful by Mira T. Lee
A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea by Masaji Ishikawa
The Secrets She Keeps by Michael Robotham

4.5 stars
Ghosted by J.M. Darhower
The Girl in the Tower (#2 in series) by Katherine Arden *the first book is a book club read for us, but the second book is better!


14 books for the month, 50 for the year

[bex]

I think you mean April ;-)

***
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

****
A Higher Loyalty by James Comey
My Grandmother Asked me To tell you she's sorry by Fredrik Bachman

I'm at 24/50 for the year (for my reading challenge)

[litskispeciality]

An ok month for me...

Finished: A Wrinkle in Time 3*'s (I know unpopular opinion, I don't know if I just didn't read it fast enough for it if it's just not my style. I hope the movie fills in some gaps)

Read: Just One Day by Gayle Forman 4*'s - I'm glad I stuck with it

Started: Dancing in Red Shoes will Kill You by Donna Decker and Just One Year by Gayle Forman together about 150 pages.

Overall I'm 7.5 out of 24 for the year, hoping May will be better for catch up.

[rootbeerfloat]

The Thief (Black Dagger Brotherhood #16) by JR Ward - 3*
The Bear and the Nightingale (Winternight Trilogy #1) by Katherine Arden - 4*
Now That You Mention It by Kristan Higgins - 3.5*
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy - 3.5*

16/50 for the year

[tacokick]

I’m up to 103 books read in 2018! I don’t have a goal. This month I read about 20 which is a little light for me. I tried and put down about 12 though with completion levels from 10-50%. I just couldn’t get into anything, even a couple of books I had been looking forward to.

Mother, Mother Koren Zailckas 4*

The Broken Girls Simone St James 5*

Single, Carefree, Mellow Katherine Heiny 4*

Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race Reni Eddo-Lodge 4*

Flat Broke with Two Goats Jennifer McGaha 1*

Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century Jessica Bruder 4*

This is Where it Ends Marieke Nijkamp 3*

The Last Black Unicorn Tiffany Haddish 3 1/2*

Elizabeth Is Missing Emily Healy 4*

Hippie Food: How Back-to-the-Landers, Longhairs, and Revolutionaries Changed the Way We Eat Jonathan Kauffman 3*

The Last Mrs. Parrish Liv Constantine 2*

And Then There Was Me Sadeqa Johnson 3 1/2*

The Wedding Date Jasmine Guillory 4*

All the Summer Girls Meg Donohue 1*

This Beautiful Life Helen Schulman 2*

Gone Without a Trace Mary Torjussen 2 1/2*

Four of a Kind Valerie Frankel 1/2*

Then She Was Gone Lisa Jewell 4 1/2*

The Day I Died Lori Rader-Day 2*

Laura & Emma Kate Greathead 3*

Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship Kayleen Schaefer 2 1/2*

[abs]

I read 3 books which is about average for me, especially for this time of the year!

The Storyteller--3.5*
When We Were Yours--4.5*
Still me--4*

I enjoyed all of them. I'm almost finished with The Stolen Marriage but that will be for May's reviews!

[dorothyinAus]

In May so far, I've read three sections of Caught in the Revolution: Petrograd 1917. It's really quite interesting and a view of the Russian Revolution I really haven't seen too much. I've read books about Nicholas II and the royal family, so it's very enlightening to see the events from the other side, and especially from the view of foreigners.

In April, I read:
21. Paddington at the Palace by Michael Bond 5*****
22. Peppermint Glazed Murder by Susan Gillard 3***
23. Death at the Chateau Bremont by M.L. Longworth 4****
24. Hot Chocolate Glazed Murder by Susan Gillard 3***
25. Murder in St. Giles by Ashley Gardner 5*****
26. Kale to the Queen by Nell Hampton 2**
27. Murder in the Rue Dumas by M.L. Longworth 4****
28. Death in the Vines by M.L. Longworth 4****

Goodreads easy I'm 13 books ahead for my goal of 48 for the year.

I enjoyed the M.L. Longworth books, and will definitely have to seek out the remainder of the series. Murder in St. Giles was an excellent adventure with Captain Lacey and friends and I can't wait for the next-in-series, a year seems so long between visits with good friends. Paddington at the Palace was just a silly little book DH picked up for me and dared me to record in my total for the year.

The Susan Gillard books are Kindle freebies and are worth about what I paid for them, but I'm now 30 books into the series, so I feel invested in the characters. They are being rewritten, but I doubt I'll re-read them, they simply aren't that good. I use them as books to read when I wake up in the middle of the night.

Kale to the Queen had such potential but it fell very flat. The set up was unbelievable, the characters were annoying, and on the whole it was poorly written and plotted. I will not be seeking out the rest of that series, which is sad because it did have such potential to be a perfect series for me.

[minzy]

In April I read:
The Radium Girls - Kate Moore - 4 stars
Antarctica - Gabrielle Walker - 4.5 stars
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane - Lisa See - 3.5 stars
A Higher Loyalty - James Comey - 4.5 stars
You Think It, I'll Say It: Stories - Curtis Sittenfeld - 5 stars.  It's a collection of ten random satisfying stories about middle aged people.  I thought it was great.

26/52 on the year

[brewco]

April was a good month for me. I'm at 22/52 so far

One of Us Is Lying- 4*

Little Fires Everywhere- 4*

The Radium Girls- 5*

Force of Nature (Aaron Falk #2)- 4*

The Light Between Oceans- 4*

Behind Her Eyes- 2*

[spedrunner]

The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey (3.5 stars)
Mosley, Walter

You (2 stars)
Kepnes, Caroline *

The Lightkeeper's Daughters (3 stars)
Pendziwol, Jean E. *

The Silent Sister (4 stars)
Chamberlain, Diane *

Necessary Lies (4 stars)
Chamberlain, Diane *

The Little French Bistro (2.5 stars)
George, Nina *

[litskispeciality]

Sorry I just realized this should be "what did you read in April" since we just started May.

[rainbowchip]

I had a great April!

I finished (finally) Little Women 3*
The Gunslinger by Stephen King 3*
Reread Ready Player One by Ernest Cline 5*
Nightfall by Jake Halpern 3*
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See 4*
Now That You Mention It by Kristan Highins 2*
Fifty Shades Darker by E.L. James 3*

I am at 19/52 for the year. 2 books ahead of schedule.

[kelliebeans104]

Read:

HP and the Goblet of Fire *****
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles ****
Artemis by Andy Weir **


Listened to:

Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks **** highly recommend
Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan ****
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman ***
The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer ****

[Vespasia]

The only thing I finished in April was Children of Blood and Bone and it was fantastic. I wanted to give it more than 5 stars on Goodreads. 

[aurora]

I finished a lot more than usual in April, partly because of an audiobook deluge from the library (I ended up listening at 1.2x speed, which I don't usually do). Also, 5 of the 8 were re-reads and Very Good Lives is very short.

The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith
A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination by JK Rowling
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See
Voyager by Diana Gabaldon
The Waste Lands by Stephen King
Salem's Lot by Stephen King
Anne of Avonlea by LM Montgomery

I think most of these don't need a lot of description. Very Good Lives is a graduation speech that did prompt me to think about how I define and how I should be defining success in my career. Most of the others are pretty escapist in one way or another.

ETA - I don't really have a goal. I do have a 2018 book challenge that I am sort of following, though not rigorously. I have read 20 of the 50 categories on that list so far.

[aurora]

May 1, 2018 13:39:17 GMT -5 litskispeciality said:

An ok month for me...

Finished: A Wrinkle in Time 3*'s (I know unpopular opinion, I don't know if I just didn't read it fast enough for it if it's just not my style. I hope the movie fills in some gaps)
...

I loved it and re-read it many times as a child and adolescent. But, I don't think it translates to middle adulthood as well as some books, if you didn't already have that childhood history.

[travella]

I have to guess at my books for the month because my Goodreads account isn't showing the last couple books I read.

Deep Freeze by John Sanford 2*
Silent Sister by Diane Chamberlain 4*
The Child by Fiona Barton 3*
The Silent Child by Sarah Denzil 3*

[mrspez07]

Difficult Women by Roxane Gay 3*
The Power by Naomi Alderman (audio) 3*
Broken Harbor by Tana French 4*
Celine by Peter Heller 3*

A very average book kind of month

[wesleycrusher]

1. I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution by Craig Marks- 5
2. American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation's Drive to End Welfare by Jason DeParle- 4
3. Slimed!: An Oral History of Nickelodeon's Golden Age by Mathew Klickstein- 4
4. Red Clocks by Leni Zumas- 3
5. After You (Me Before You, #2) by Jojo Moyes- 2
6. Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography (audiobook) by Neil Patrick Harris- 4
7. Me Before You (Me Before You, #1) by Jojo Moyes- 4
8. Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs by Ken Jennings- 4
9. The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian- 4
10. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson- 4
11. The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian- 3
12. A Girl Like That by Tanaz Bhathena- 5
13. Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero- 2
14. Crash Override: How Gamergate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life, and How We Can Win the Fight Against Online Hate by Zoe Quinn- 4
15. Spelled (The Storymakers, #1) by Betsy Schow- 2
16. Home: A Memoir of My Early Years by Julie Andrews Edwards- 4
17. Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans de Waal- 3
18. Armada (audiobook) by Ernest Cline- 3

[CrazyLucky]

I read the Immortalists. I coach baseball, so I'm lucky to have read that one. I hated it. I read the whole thing thinking that it must get better. It did not. As time passes, the more I think about it, the less I like it.

I have The Soul of Black Folk by W.E.B. DuBois right now. I was actually looking for a biography of him, but was having trouble, so I just got one of his books.

[frog]

Etta and Otto and Russell and James - ****
Tower of Dawn - **
Year of Wonders - ***
Liberated, A Novel of Germany, 1945 - **
Beneath a Scarlet Sky - ***

Overall a slow month.