Hey bookworm friends. Happy July! I went to the library this morning to avoid construction noises in my building…only to bask in the construction noises of the library 🫠. That is to say, I have zero focus. Nevertheless, it’s time for my Q2 Reading Check-In. I’m going to dig into the books I read this April, May and June, and see how I’m doing on my challenges, wish me luck 😜!
Q2 Reading Check-In Stats
Books Read in Q2: 17
| Format Read |
|---|
| 📱E-Books: 3 |
| 📚 Physical: 6 |
| 🎧 Audiobooks: 5 |
| 📖+🎧Immersive: 3 |
| Genre * |
|---|
 🐲Fantasy: 7 |
| 🎩Classics: 1 |
| 🚀Science Fiction: 1 |
| 💞Romance: 3 |
| 🚀🐲Sci-Fantasy: 2 |
| 🕵️♀️Mystery: 1 |
| 😱Horror: 1 |
| 🏠Fiction: 1 |
| Book Format |
|---|
| Graphic Novel: 4 |
| Target Audience |
|---|
| Adult: 9 |
| Young Adult: 6 |
| Middle Grade: 2 |
| Source |
|---|
| Library Borrow: 12 |
| Owned: 2 |
| ARC: 3 |
| Misc |
|---|
| 🔁Re-Reads: 2 |
| 🧑🤝🧑Buddy Reads: 7 |
* There’s often a lot of cross-over in terms of genre. In the interest of simplicity, I’ll list each book under the genre I feel describes it best.
What I Read
I read a lot less this past quarter; I didn’t always have audiobooks going, I dnf’d more, and I only managed to finish 4 books in June. I also did not stay on top of my reviews (I’m indeed very behind) so I hope to do a better job of that next quarter! To get an idea of which books I enjoyed the most and which I disliked the most, I’ll mark my tops with🏆and the flops with👎.
📚The Physical Books📚
💞Swordheart by T. Kingfisher│Adult│ARC -🏆
😱Don’t Let The Forest In by C. G. Drews│YA│Library Borrow│🧑🤝🧑Buddy Read
💞I Shall Never Fall In Love by Hari Conner│YA│Library Borrow│Graphic Novel│🧑🤝🧑Buddy Read -🏆
🐲The Ghostkeeper by Johanna Taylor│YA│Library Borrow│Graphic Novel│🧑🤝🧑Buddy Read
🐲Shubeik Lubeik by Deena Mohamed│Adult│Library Borrow│Graphic Novel
🐲When The Tides Held The Moon by Venessa Vida Kelley│Adult│ARC│🧑🤝🧑Buddy Read
📱The E-Books📱
🚀🐲 Cello’s Gate by Maurice Africh│Adult│ARC -🏆- Review
🐲 Catboy by Benji Nate│Adult│Library Borrow
💞A Lesson in Thorns by Sierra Simone│Adult│Owned│🧑🤝🧑Buddy Read
🎧The Audiobooks🎧
🐲The Demon Sword Asperides by Sarah Jean Horwitz│Narrator: Mark Sanderlin│MG│Library Borrow -👎
🚀🐲The Black God’s Drums by P. Djèlí Clark│Narrator: Channie Waites│Adult│Library Borrow
🕵️♀️A Grave Robbery by Deanna Raybourn│Narrator: Angele Masters│Adult│Library Borrow -🏆
🏠The Eyes & The Impossible by Dave Eggers│Narrator: Ethan Hawke│MG│Library Borrow
🚀The Brightness Between Us by Eliot Schrefer│Narrator: James Fouhey│YA│Library Borrow
📖The Immersive Reads🎧
My preferred method of reading classics is to listen to the audio and read along, I find it helps with the immersion 😜. I also decided to do this for my re-read of the Wicked Lovely series to experience it in a new way.
🎩The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim│Narrator: Robin Siegerman│Adult│Library Borrow
🐲Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr│Narrator: Alyssa Bresnahan│YA│Library Borrow
🐲Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr│Narrator: Nick Landrum│YA│Owned
Out of the 17 books there’s only 1 real flop because if something’s flopping, I tend to DNF it. The rest I mostly enjoyed but the 4 tippy-tops are the ones that made my heart sing!
Reading Challenges Progress
I haven’t been as active on Instagram lately so I don’t have any updates for the SFF101 Challenge that I was doing on there. I’ve got updates for the three other challenges though! 🙂
2025 Finishing The Series Challenge
Hosted by Carla @Carla Loves to Read & Jonetta @Blue Mood Café. Learn more here.
The level I’m targeting for this challenge is “Mini Series” which means I will hopefully finish 5-8 series by the end of the year. In Q1 I had finished or caught up with 4 series. Any new progress I made will be highlighted in blue. I also made a decision that if I DNF a series I’m counting that as progress because I’m finished with it so I can check it off my list.
- Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld – Read Books 2 & 3. Status: FINISHED ✅
- Wayward Children by Seanan McGuire – Read Book 10. Status: CAUGHT UP TO MOST RECENT. 😊
- Penric & Desdemona by Lois McMaster Bujold – Read Book 13. Status: CAUGHT UP TO MOST RECENT. 😊
- Witch Hat Atelier by Kamome Shirahama – Read Volume 13. Status: CAUGHT UP TO MOST RECENT. 😊
- Veronica Speedwell by Deanna Raybourn – Read Book 9. Status: CAUGHT UP TO MOST RECENT.😊
- The Darkness Outside Us Duology by Eliot Schrefer – Read Book 2. Status: FINISHED ✅
- Phoenix Heart by Sarah K. L. Wilson – Read Season 3. Status: DNF ❌
Total # Of Series Finished / Caught Up: 7
The Sound of Madness 2025
Hosted by Timy @Queen’s Book Asylum
| 🎵Song | 🎯Prompt | 📖Book | ✔️Why I Picked It |
|---|---|---|---|
| Run This Jungle by City Wolf X Tone Assassins | Set in a jungle or a forest. It can also be about a crime lord or someone running a gang. | The Eyes & The Impossible by Dave Eggers | Johannes the dog lives in a national park and he kind of runs the crew of animals that live there. |
| Own My Mind by Måneskin | A character who tries to control someone else’s mind, OR it could be about a character who knows their own mind | The Brightness Between Us by Eliot Schrefer | There’s a character who suddenly doesn’t recognize his own mind as if something is taking over him. |
| New Kings by Sleeping Wolf | Royalty prompt: includes kings, queens, kingdoms, and wannabe rulers. | Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marss | There’s plenty of fairy court royalty in this one. |
| Sick Cycle Carousel by Lifehouse | A book set in a circus/traveling troupe/etc. | When The Tides Held the Moon by Venessa Vida Kelley | It’s set in a 1910’s “sideshow” |
| Immortals by Fall Out Boy | Gods, monsters, creatures, anything that’s legendary, and optionally immortal | Cello’s Gate by Maurice Africh | There are literally immortals, it’s a big plot point. |
Finished Prompts
In Q2: 5/25 , Total: 13/25
The 2025 SFF Title Challenge
Hosted by Annemieke @A Dance With Books
Prompts Completed:
- Wicked Lovely
- Don’t Let The Forest In
- The Black God’s Drum
- The Ghostkeeper
Let’s chat in the comments!
What’s your most recent 5 star read? Or, how are your reading goals or challenges going so far?
It looks like you had a pretty good quarter! I would like to read The Eyes and the Impossible, I’m curious to hear what you thought of it. I’m currently working on my mid year challenge update and I wish I’d started sooner, lol.
I really can’t complain it was pretty great 🙂 ! & The Eyes & The Impossible was heartwarming, quirky and sweet and the dog is fine (I only read it because a friend assured me the dog would be okay). It’s definitely worth a read and the narration was super well-done! I don’t think I’ll write a review for it but mostly because I’ve been atrocious at keeping up with reviews lately in that I haven’t written any 😂 Oh good luck, I find those posts time-intensive but so fun to make. Can’t wait to see it when it’s up 😀
It looks like you had a good reading quarter and like you’re making steady progress with your challenges. After all, I say some progress is better than no progress! 🤭 But you’ve done amazing with the series challenge—congrats! I’ve always wanted to try Timy’s Sound of Madness challenge cos it’s quite a fun and creative challenge but I’m also pretty terrible and trying new challenges and following through on them, so maybe one day I’ll get to it. I hope you read some more awesome books in Q3!
Yes, indeed I agree, any progress is better than none! lol 😀 The series challenge is the one that needs the most attention anyway so that’s why I focused on it the most, the rest is just for fun lol. Yes, Timy’s Sound of Madness is so creative you can tell how much effort is put into it and I love the band that she named the challenge after so that’s how I knew I had to participate 😂. I totally understand though, that’s fair. Thanks so much and I hope the same for you, Dini 🥰
I loved seeing your stats! I Shall Never Fall In Love looks so cute! I really enjoyed The Ghostkeeper, I read it last year 🥰
Looks like you’re doing well with the Finishing The Series Challenge! I’m trying to knock out some of the series on my TBR as well 😄
Thank you, I’m glad you enjoyed it, I thought that maybe collecting my stats at every quarter might help at the end of the year but that remains to be seen lol. Oh my gosh I highly recomend I Shall Never Fall in Love and The Ghostkeeper was also great although so much heavier than I was expecting haha.
Yess, here’s to both of us knocking out more series this year! 💪🏼 Thanks, Caro.
It looks like a solid quarter to me! I’d love to give some Kingfisher stories someday. They all sound so good. I also have a copy of The Black God’s Drums that I’d like to get around to sooner rather than later. Happy reading! 😀
It was solid indeed, thanks Lashaan! 🙂 I’ve enjoyed all the Kingfisher stories I’ve read so far to varying degrees so I definitely think it’s worth a shot! The Black God’s Drums was a great story and the audiobook was excellently narrated! Thanks for visiting my blog 🙂
You’re doing wonderfully with your reading this year, even if it was down on last quarter. If youre out more in the sun, and had all of those extracts to read too, it makes sense though. I’m also sorry to hear about the construction noise. How frustrating that it seemed to shadow you.
I can’t believe how many buddy reads you did in a quarter, wow!! Although to be fair I’ve had three in a week now 😂
I’m not surprised to see Swordheart listed as a favourite. How did you find The Black God’s Drums? I’ve been meaning to try something by the author. Our current buddy read, and that Speedwell rating, is really making me need to hurry up and get to those books 😂
Yay you’re doing wonderfully with your challenges too. Well done. I still need to check in on mine 🙈 I love that you’ve managed to fill in four of the SFF one especially as that ones so hard!!
I hope you have another fantastic quarter. I can’t believe we’re already over half way through the year.
Thanks so much 🥰 It’s true I’ve been busy with other things 🙂 & there’s a joke in Canada that there are two seasons, winter and construction and on days like that I really feel like that’s true. 😂
I have really been enjoying reading with friends and I am so thankful 🖤! Haha you’ve had a lot too.
I enjoyed The Black God’s Drums, it was really short and I listened to the audio which was excellently narrated and the story was compelling and unique but I would have loved it if it was longer.
Hehe well I am glad you’re interested in Speedwell but also there’s no rush don’t worry. 🙂
I was surprised I did 4 for SFF titles because I wasn’t trying to it kind of naturally happened lol.
Thank you I hope you have a great second half of the year and I know me neither!
Oh wow really? I’ve never heard that before but it certainly sounds fitting for the day you had 😅
I’m glad to hear it 😊
That’s good to hear that it was strong. But I get the length thing. I think that’s part of why I haven’t gotten to the authors books yet, they sound great but they tend to be so short. And I’m better at picking up longer reads apparently 🙈
I may try to start the series over the winter. If it’s cosy it’ll be wonderful to fit in then.
Ooh yay that’s how I’m hoping to tackle mine. I imagine I’ll check in and have only crossed off Wicked though 🙈
Thank you 🥰
Haha yes it was fitting, and there’s still construction all around my building lol 😂
Ahaha that’s understandable sometimes you want a bit more meat in your stories! Although that being said there are plenty of his books I really want to try, the premises all sound fantastic and I hear so much praise for his books in general.
Ah yes that might be a good fit for winter since Veronica complains about the dreary weather lol
haha well good luck and we shall see 😉
Oh no I’m sorry to hear that it’s still going on now.
To be fair I recently read a shorter read and loved it. So I need to start fitting in more of them. At least there easy to fit in time wise. Although it does bother me that they make my average book length drop 🙈
Oh wow she would hate our winters then 😂
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