March Wrap-up: The month so terrible I’m embarrassed to tell you about it

Well, guys. Sometimes life happens.

Sometimes life happens in the sense that you read a John Green book and you hate it so much it plunges you into a deep pit of existential questioning that takes up all your time. (Questions like, Who are we? Why are we here? Why the f*ck do we bother reading books when we could read a book and it could be this book, which sucks and I hate it?) Sometimes life happens in the sense that you’re busy, and your free time is taken up by non-reading related things.

Sometimes both happen at once. There’s a term for that: it’s called “the month of March in the year of 2018.”

This is a long way of saying I failed this month. Reading-wise. I did not read very much. I did not review at all. I did not blog, I did not bookstagram, I barely Goodreads’d.

I am a failure.

Woo!

Well. Here we go. The reason I didn’t want to make this post. Tear it off like a Band-Aid, Emma.

I HATE FAILING. I’m bad at it! Probably because…I don’t have a lot of practice.

(I’m smirking right now, just so you know. I’m really pleased with myself. Comically, exaggeratedly pleased.)

MARCH GOALS

READ AT LEAST ONE CLASSIC ✗

READ AT LEAST 22 BOOKS ✗

DO BETTER AT SCHOOL ASSIGNED READINGS ✓

READ ARCS ✓ (KINDA)

HAVE UNDER 10 UNPOSTED REVIEWS ON GOODREADS ✗

HAVE AN AVERAGE RATING OVER 3 ✓

GOALS FOR APRIL

READ AT LEAST TWO CLASSICS

STAY 20+ BOOKS AHEAD OF GOODREADS CHALLENGE

READ ARCS

REDUCE NUMBER OF UNPOSTED REVIEWS

BLOG POST AT LEAST 5 TIMES

FOCUS ON SCHOOL

TRY AT BOOKSTAGRAM

GET OUT OF THIS SLUMP

April is my last month of school.

I know! Can you believe it?? A month from today it will be summer for me, boi!!! Summer! The best season of all, easy, no contest!

Unfortunately that means that April will be the freshest possible hell leading up to the most beautiful heavenly time of the year.

I have finals. I have the essays and projects and assignments that come with finals. I have my last week of work. I have subletting and apartment leasing and other disgusting grown up things to do. I have to pack! I have to say goodbye to the sweetest little apartment in the entire universe!

Oh, god, I am filling my own self with fear.

Anyway. This is all to say that in spite of the fact that I’ve set some pretty elevated goals for myself, I’m probably not going to be very reading-/blogging-/Goodreads-focused this month.

Sticking to the theme I set in March am I right!!

1. The Austere Academy by Lemony Snicket

Read: March 5 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 5 stars

I’m screaming internally right now. Just at the very thought of this.

At the beginning(ish) of this month, I endeavored to continue the Series of Unfortunate Events reread I started…when. I don’t know. A long time ago probably.

Anyway the second season of the AMAZING Netflix show came out on March 30, and I had lofty dreams of rereading the series and rewatching the first season and being all Snicket-ed and Baudelaire’d out just in time.

As it turns out, it’s now April 3 as I write this. I made it through the seventh book and I’ve only rewatched three quarters of the first season. But it’s been just delightful anyway and I’ll make it through and this book rocks and don’t you just love the word “austere”?

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2. Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World by Pénélope Bagieu

Read: March 5 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 5 stars

YES MA’AM YOU READ THAT CORRECTLY. Two books. Two five star ratings. One day.

See this is pre-John Green. This is during spring break. This is when my life was wonderful and lovely and controlled.

Summer I will see you soon.

Anyway this book was a goddamn delight and I’ve been unable to stop thinking about it to the point that I am actively seeking out graphic novels with beautiful/adorable art depicting the underknown underrecognized badass females of history.

Surprisingly, I’ve found some books in that unbelievably specific subgenre, but whatever. You should read this one.

Right the hell now. (Thanks to Fierce Reads for the ARC/technically finished copy I LOVED IT MORE THAN LIFE.)

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3. Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire

Read: March 6 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 3 stars

And then it began to come crashing down.

Except not really. This was just a meh sequel to a really really really really REALLY perfect good amazing magnificent first book.

Happens all the time.

But still. The first chink in the ol’ armor. The armor being the month of March, which is about to get beaten to death with a dull blade and then lit on fire and then dropped into a pit of acid.

This book is the sequel, kind of, but also kind of prequel and also kind of companion novel, to Every Heart a Doorway. Which I loved. But you win some, you lose some, you know? (It is NOT middle book syndrome!! Shoutout to Elise’s amazing post on that.)

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4. Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

Read: March 4-8 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 2 stars

Here it is. The moment you’ve all been waiting for.

Or not really “waiting for,” probably, so much as being like “god damn it here we are reading this already unnecessarily dramatic wrap up of Emma’s mildly bad month and the worst moment is yet to come.”

Well. Here’s the worst moment. It’s come.

I forced my poor, sweet, innocent brain to consume the words of the pretentious Satan of the young adult lit community, and look what it got me. This is my curse.

Anyway. I hated this book. I took pages of notes on it and have put in two writing sessions on the review.

It’s going to be a lengthy one.

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5. The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

Read: March 6-10 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 5 stars

But bright spots remained in this month from hell!! One of those bright spots has a name and it’s May! The bright spot also has a blog that is the best thing ever and you should follow it.

May and I buddy reread the greatest middle grade adventure book of all time (which is in turn the greatest genre) and it was the best. I was starting to slump for the entire time I read this book but it was still a blast and a half.

That’s called a testament to the quality of this book, dear one.

Also a testament to quality: it’s five hundred pages long. And I read it PAINLESSLY! While, as established, slumping! Magic book. Ugh. So good.

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6. The Ersatz Elevator by Lemony Snicket

Read: March 12 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 5 stars

How many ways can I say “dear holy god I love this series so much”?

Hopefully at least eight more. Right now + the other A Series of Unfortunate Events book I reread this month + the six additional books I still will reread in the nearish future.

So: Dear holy god I love this series so much.

Filling space for the sake of the formatting I’ve set up in the six previous what-I-read-this-month-entries.

Will delve deeper into how much I love this series and other synonymous phrases in the next one.

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7. Close to Home by Cara Hunter

Read: ?-March 19 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 2 stars

Emma, note to self: If overtaken by the worst reading slump you’ve had in absolutely months if not over a year, do not force yourself through the most mundane boring plain Jane meh thriller on the face of the entire planet.

Especially if said thriller is also overwhelmingly British. It’s a trigger. (Thanks, Girl on the Train!)

This book was so unbelievably boring. I did not care at all about it. Reading felt like slowly forcing myself through a wall made out of very thick mildly gross slime. Like the kind on Instagram #satisfying videos.

Okay honestly what the hell am I even saying anymore? I’m sorry for what’s happening.

Thanks to Penguin First to Read for the e-ARC

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8. The Vile Village by Lemony Snicket

Read: March 19-24 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 4 stars

You know you’re in a reading slump and life is also bonkers when it takes you five days to get through a 272-page installment of your favorite series!!

And you know you’re still in a reading slump when it’s been ELEVEN DAYS and you haven’t finished anything since.

But whatever. I think this book felt more meh to me than the others in the series just because I was slumped to DEATH, but also I love this series more and more as it progresses and the world gets so complex and spooky and creepy and cool and secretive and mysterious and I’m Very Flippin Delighted to be doing this reread at all. Even in a slump. So good.

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Making for an overall average rating of…………drumroll please……………..because it’s truly unbelievable……………..I mean seriously get ready to be astounded……………………

3.875!!!

Granted, four of the books were rereads. But still.

Well, I only posted three times.

So that’s easy.

But also, like February, my review of The Light We Lost was still my top post??? Even though it’s millions of years old?? Thanks, that book, for getting optioned for a movie and giving me those fresh fresh page views even when I’m not posting!

That is the only time I will ever thank that godless book.

So. There’s March. In a lot of personal-life ways it was a really great month, but in every book and internet way imaginable it was garbage. Mixed bag overall.

Maybe next month I’ll hit the best of both worlds sweet spot.

Hahaha. I kid, I kid. That could never happen.

How was your March? Did you read anything good? What was your favorite read of the month?