State of the ARC | #10 Dis-ARC-ster

State of the ARC is a monthly meme at Avalinah’s Books meant to motivate you to finish up all your long overdue ARCs (Advanced or Early Reader Copies).

This month was Moody May so I was expecting to not be reading many ARCs, which I was fine with, but it ended up being more of a disaster than I had anticipated as two of my ARCs ended up being archived. It’s the first time any ARCs I’ve requested through Netgalley have ended up being archived before and I was gutted as I didn’t discover this until I went on Netgalley to read them. They were both graphic novels that I had set aside as nice, easy reads so yes… I’m very sad about this. 

Aside from my 2 archive losses, I read 1 book (Aurora Rising) and received one book on Netgalley (Don’t Touch my Hair). I know I promised not to request any more ARCs but I am a huge fan of Emma Dabiri’s work and couldn’t resist requesting Don’t Touch my Hair as it’s such an important book.

State of the ARC Bingo

I don’t have long to finish up my Bingo card for the first half of 2019 now and I’m not sure when it technically runs out, but I’m going to give myself until the end of June so that I might be in with a chance of actually finishing it. I’ll be able to use Don’t Touch my Hair for the nonfiction ARC, though I don’t know what I’ll be able to use for the graphic novel slot now as I lost both my graphic novel ARCs 😭

I’m sticking with my rule of taking a break from ARCs for the most part, with the exception of catching up on the last few ARCs that I have, especially given that these next few months are going to be very stressful for me as my deadlines are coming up in August and September.

How are you all coping now that we’re almost halfway through the year? Have you managed to keep up with your ARC goals or are they just a distant memory to you now?

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Wrap Up | May 2019 + the unintended hiatus

Hey friends!

Some of you may (or may not) have noticed that I’ve been absent for pretty much the entirety of May. I had planned to take a little step back from blogging anyway as this summer is going to be really busy for me on my Master’s degree, but then I managed to catch/develop gastroenteritis – a nasty contagious stomach bug – which completely knocked me out for almost 2 weeks. Then I had to return to work, start planning my long summer of uni work, and celebrate my partner’s birthday on Sunday. Before I knew it, I found myself at the end of May? I feel like I blinked and missed it.

A couple of weeks ago, I tweeted about my concerns around being able to manage book blogging alongside starting my PhD in September (not to mention squeezing it in amongst all my Master’s work this summer) and I’m still not sure what the outcome of my ponderings will be. It’s definitely something I’m planning on writing a discussion post about so that I can talk about it more in-depth and speak to other book bloggers who manage their blog alongside busy lives. What I do know though, from having my unintended break this month, is that I feel a lot less happy when I’m not blogging and I felt so isolated from my book blog friends. Writing this post is already beginning to lift my low mood but I’m also anxious about how much work I have to do. Anyway, that’s not a decision to be made right now – instead, I want to share with you all what I did manage to get up to during Moody May ❤

WWW Wednesday | 8th May 2019

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words! All you have to do is answers the following three questions:

What are you currently reading/playing?
What did you recently finish reading/playing?
What do you think you’ll read/play next?

This week has been pretty chill, making very slow progress on my essay and progress on books and games! I’m not looking forward to May as we have a lot of stressful things coming up (landlord inspection, deadlines, etc) so it’s going to be a bit difficult balancing everything that’s coming up. For now though, let’s catch up on this week.

ARC Review: Aurora Rising | It’s Time for a New Space-Adventure

TITLE: Aurora Rising
AUTHOR: Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
SERIES: The Aurora Cycle
RELEASED: May 2019; Oneworld Publications
GENRE: YA Science Fiction
FORMAT: Paperback

KEY INFO: space-adventure, military science fiction, squad goals, multiple POVs
REPRESENTATION: bisexual male (Finian) , women of color (Auri is half-Chinese and Zila is black), physically disabled (Finian) and neurodivergent (Zila)

Content Notices

death, war, body horror, being knocked unconscious multiple times, unresolved guilt/tension around a one-night stand, ableism

amazon // book depository // goodreads

May ‘TBR’ | Moody May!

By now I’m sure most of you are aware that I’m taking part in Moody May as my enthusiasm over mood reading has led me to mention it at almost every available moment in my recent blogs! I had initially planned to take part in another readathon but I really need a break from structured TBR as well as the pressure of keeping up with reviews. I’ve noticed that the combined constraints of my TBR and stress of ARC reviews were leading me to read much slower than I otherwise would, leading me into reading slumps and all around sadness. Plus, sometimes books that had been patiently waiting on my long-term TBR list would one day call out to me only for their pleas to be read to go ignored…

No longer! Moody May is here to save the day and help me take a much needed, more relaxed approach to reading. As part of Moody May is to be free from TBR’s this post isn’t so much of a TBR as a “Moody May sign-up and list of books I might like to read” post.