May Wrap-Up

Hello hello! This month has been incredibly crazy for me: while still in school I have moved away from school into an apartment for the summer, started my summer internship, had to move apartments, and deal with finals. As in, I have been working 40 hours a week and doing full time school simultaneously. Fun! As a result, I didn’t think I would read too many books this month, but I have actually managed to read 10! Thank you audiobooks. (Really about half my reads this month were audiobooks.)

I guess it is worth noting that I hit my yearly challenge this month of 70 books! As of now, I have read 73 books in 2021. Based on this, I am definitely going to try to get to 100 by the end of the year. However, I didn’t want to give myself a 100 goal at the very beginning of the year, because I truly didn’t know how much I would be reading – what with actually having a job this summer instead of having nothing better to do than read books all day.

My favorites of the month were A Taste for Love by Jennifer Yen and Pride and Premeditation by Tirzah Price. Two Pride and Prejudice inspired books! I swear this was not on purpose. I also loved Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu. In fact, if I had to recommend one book from this month, it would definitely be Interior Chinatown. I thought it was a great satire which examined how Asian Americans are perceived in the film industry, and in general in America.

Per usual, I also had a few duds. (Actually, more than a few. I had quite a few 2 and 3 star reads this month; it’s no wonder I’m feeling slumpy.) I finished The Agency series, but I was disappointed by the last book, I thought it was the weakest of the series. I also was not a huge fan of A Sisterhood of Secret Ambitions, which I will be posting a full review of soon. Find my full list of this month’s reads and ratings under the cut!

• The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune – ★★ (I wrote about my ratings drop on goodreads, but I recommend Bella or Cosette’s review)
• The Traitor in the Tunnel by Y.S. Lee – ★★★
• Rivals in the City by Y.S. Lee – ★★★ (leaning a bit lower)
• When Dimple met Rishi by Sandhya Menon – ★★ (This was a re-read that I DNF-ed at 50%, so I didn’t count it toward the month’s total)
• A Sisterhood of Secret Ambitions by Sheena Boekweg – ★★
• A Taste for Love by Jennifer Yen – ★★★★
• Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu – ★★★★
• How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa – ★★★ (leaning down)
• The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa – ★★★
• Pride and Premeditation by Tirzah Price – ★★★★
• Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong – ★★★★

As you can see, I read quite a few books by Asian authors for AAPI month. And I’ll be reading more in the next few months(and year round!), because there were a lot that I wanted to get to this month, but didn’t, or ones that I placed library holds on that haven’t come in yet.

As I said, I should be posting my review of A Sisterhood of Secret Ambitions soon, so keep an eye out for that!