Bookwyrm Breakdown: May 2022

Is it just me, or does it feel like we jumped from winter to maybe like a week of spring and now we’re jumping straight into summer?

That aside, I hope everyone is doing okay. May has been a very eventful month in the world, especially in recent weeks. Don’t forget to take a break, drink water, or play games.

This Month’s Posts

• [1 May] Bookwyrm Breakdown: April 2022
• [6 May] Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor by Xiran Jay Zhao ★★★★★
• [10 May] A Brilliant Night of Stars and Ice by Rebecca Connolly ★★★★½
• [20 May] Should You Blog Under a Pen Name? Why it is Absolutely Okay

Books Hoarded

I don’t think May was nice to my wallet or maybe I wasn’t nice to my wallet in May. Either option ends with more books in little stacks scattered throughout my room.

• Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan
• Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor by Xiran Jay Zhao – my mom’s been asking me to get a specific book for her for ages so technically I got this because I wanted to get free shipping while also getting her the book… (also I enjoyed reading the ARC and wanted to get a copy of my own)
• Once Upon a K-Prom by Kat Cho – who am I to pass up on a K-Pop book
• The Last Fallen Moon by Graci Kim (publisher) – I loved The Last Fallen Star so much, so I’m absolutely thrilled to read the sequel for the blog tour later in June

ARCs (because I’m a glutton for not finishing my old ARCs from 2020-2021, but I suppose keeping relatively somewhat late on top of 2022 is a win?)

• Secrets of the Looking Glass by J. Scott Savage (ARC)
• Beating Heart Baby by Lio Min (eARC)
• Wild is the Witch by Rachel Griffin (eARC)
• Last of the Talons by Sophie Kim (eARC)
• The Dragon’s Promise by Elizabeth Lim (eARC) – honestly, one of the best news I got last week from Netgalley

Books Devoured

May feels like I didn’t read a lot at all, especially since every time I try to read, I have no desire to continue a book (or I will, and then stop after 2%). But when I go back and look through my list (on my very trusty reading app because my bullet journal has just died an untimely death at this point), it turns out I read 18 books/comics/graphic novels?

Here’s just a small handful of books I read through May:

• The Mark of Athena, The House of Hades, and The Blood of Olympus by Rick Riordan – I DID IT, FRIENDS! After a decade of constant abandoning the series and multiple rereadings, I’ve finally, finally finished The Heroes of Olympus and gotten closure. That being said, since I listened to the audiobook and sort of struggle with those sometimes, I maybe remember half of what happened? Did I really listen to the book or just passively listen as I do with music? (I think at some point I may come back to this and reread the last two books or the last one.)
• Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert – Okay, I really like this one, but I truly think the author (and possibly even the narrator) got the terribly short end of the stick because the production was just awful.
• To Love Jason Thorn and To Hate Adam Connor by Ella Maise – I really liked the former, not so much the latter. (But it was definitely a good break from my current reads, which are all fantasy. I’m fantasied out at this rate.)

I finally finished the first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender after two months and then some! Everyone, please clap, but I didn’t start season two yet, so I’m doing great. (At least I’m using my Netflix since it looks like my mom and I have seesawed and I’m now using it more than her.)

Other Things I Watched:

• My Runway – It was short and quick and I finished it in one evening thanks to the short episodes. Technically, I finished this on the last day of April, but I already scheduled my April breakdown and didn’t feel like pulling out my laptop to edit after the fact.
• Stardust
• A Cinderella Story

On My Playlist

• Kingdom’s recent release (from back in April) seems to be making its way through every single one of my Spotify playlists on a daily basis (or whenever I’m not listening to an audiobook) and I can’t seem to run away. Am I complaining? Not really.
• Lightsum released Into the Light which I surprisingly enjoyed (Vanilla wasn’t my type and I haven’t touched Vivace since it was released).
• TXT released minisode 2: Thursday’s Child, to which Clo promptly rolled into my DMs one morning and informed me that she fell into another K-Pop Hole.
  • I follow TXT pretty loosely and have a love/hate relationship with their songs, but I really liked their latest EP.

The Breakdown

What catastrophes have the universe handed us throughout the month? Let’s find out. 🧐

I think at some point in May I pretty much broke down and retreated into as much of a cave as possible for self-care, though sometimes that feels impossible, and I’m just a hamster running nonstop around in this giant wheel called life.

• I think I’ve run out of backlog blog posts aside from ones I need to rewrite (or plan to) but that takes effort and I’m just not feeling it. But I finally launched the 3.3K word post (it became 3.1K finally) out into the universe about blogging under a pen name!
• Still working on trying to take better care of my hair and what ingredients don’t work well with it at all (spoiler: I’m still at the same square as last month).
• I’ve been playing through part of my Steam library and found out unpleasantly that motion sickness extends to me in the rare video game, but thankfully, most don’t seem to affect me, so that’s definitely a plus.

Let’s talk: how was your May? What are your plans for the summer/June?