May Monthly Recap

It’s time for our May monthly recap – a few days late since I was away at Book Expo for the last several days. Find out which books were favorites and which were duds for the month of May. We’ll end our wrap up with a glimpse of what’s coming out in June. 

Jen: I am finally getting back on track with my reading after a few months of insane work commitments. I managed to read 7 books including The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt which should count as 3 books. Three books were written by women but I did poorly in terms of diverse reading since 5/7 books were written by white authors. I read one translated work (Murakami) and none of my books featured LGBTQ+ characters. I hope to do better next month.

Favorite book read in May: A Wild Sheep Chase by Murakami. May was a pretty lackluster month for me in terms of the books I did manage to read. A Wild Sheep Chase was by far my favorite book. I also enjoyed the Southern Reach books (2 & 3).

Least favorite book read in May: The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah. I really disliked this book. Poorly developed characters where were either all good or all bad, melodramatic plot, and the use of PTSD presented in a cartoonish way simply as a plot device. I know lots of people loved the book but I found it cringeworthy.

Future Goals: I just picked up a ton of books at Book Expo (see photo below) so will be spending my time making my way though those books. Let me know if there is any one book you would like me to review first.

Book Worm:  May was actually a good reading month for me I managed to read 11 books, 6 of which were from outside my home country and 5 of which were written by women authors. Two of these books were from the Man Booker International Shortlist 2018 and the reviews will appear here soon.

Favorite book read in May: My favourite book finished in May was The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough, a real family saga set in Australia where the land was as much a character as the people. This was closely followed by Vernon Subutex by Virginie Despentes (MBI2018) and Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (Read Around the World -Ethiopia)

Least Favorite book read in May: My lowest May rating was 3 stars so in that sense I don’t have a least favourite, however the book that disappointed me most was The Moor’s Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie. Having loved the previous books I have read by Rushdie, I failed to find the same magic in this story.

Future Goals: I intend to read the Man Booker International Shortlist 2018 even though we know who has won, I also intend to read the Golden Man Booker Shortlist and see if I can correctly predict the winner, the goods news is I have already read 2 so I only have 3 to locate and read.

Upcoming JuneReleases:
June 5: Florida by Lauren Groff
June 5: There There by Tommy Orange. This one might my prediction list for Man Booker 2018 longest.
June 8: Neverworld Wake by Marisha Pessl
June 12: A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza. I got a copy of this at Book Expo so will try to review this soon.

What can you look forward to on our blog this month? Reviews, reviews, and more reviews. I need to start making my way through the stacks I received at Book Expo and Book Worm has lots of reviews currently in the works. We’ll also be reading around the world as we “travel” to South Korea. We hope you join us in reading South Korean books in the month of June.

We want to hear from you. So what are your plans for June? How was your May? Which books were your favorites and least favorites read this month?