Weekly Check In #5!

I think these weekly check ins are definitely helping me keep up with regular reading. Even if I don't have a ton of opportunity to read the days I work since I work 10 hour days but I at least try to get some audio book listening in while getting ready for work. It gets me just that much closer to goals and, for the most part, I've had a good reading year so far.

Goodreads says that I'm 33% done with my goal of 40 books and that I'm nine books ahead of schedule. And I have audio books to thank for that. I've found so much more time to read because of them from while cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, etc. Just today, I went to the mall to get out of the house since I haven't done much lately other than work, read, sleep, and watch the occasional show or movie. I am probably going to up my goal here soon. I think if I get to 75% of the way to go by my birthday in June, I'll up it to 50 or 60 books, to be determined closer to my birthday.

Since the last update, I've finished not one, not two, not three, but four books. Three of those were audio books and the fourth was a physical book. I started with Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. And that book has found its way to my least favorite books list for the year. The "so it goes" became annoying very quickly. I understand why it should it up when it did but it didn't change the fact that I found it annoying. I think this book had potential to be better than it actually is. The audio book was alright. Part of me wants to try again with this book as a physical book and see if I like it that way better. I ended up giving this 2 out of 5 stars.

After listening to that, I wanted to move to something a little more mindless. So I started listening to Aesop's Fables by Aesop. There were some fables that I have grown up with and was fun to listen to over again. I was also introduced to fables that I hadn't heard before. I ended up giving it a 3 out of 5 stars.

Keeping with the audio book theme, the last one I finished was Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. I remember reading this years ago. It follows a man who is mentally delayed named Charlie Gordon. He's physically 32 but mentally a child. The story is told through diary entries as Charlie undergoes an experiment that shows promise of turning Charlie into a genius. The experiment has been successful with a mouse named Algernon. This book had left enough of an impact on me that I could remember most of it when I was a kid reading it the first time. I enjoyed having this story read to me this time around. I ended up giving it a 3 out of 5 stars.

And finally, the only physical book I finished over the last week: Shadowsong by S. Jae-Jones. I absolutely loved this book! This was the second book in the Wintersong duology. This book picks up 6 months after the end of Wintersong and it was one of my most anticipated reads for 2018. It was released on the 6th of this month. I had preordered it and it came in that day. I couldn't pick up any other book and started and finished it within 12 or so hours. This duology is amazing. Especially if you loved the movie Labyrinth.

Right now, I'm reading Even the Darkest Stars by Heather Fawcett. I'm only 19% of the way done with it. I like it so far. However, I don't know if I will want to continue with the duology. But I'm still in the beginning, so we'll see.

As for audio books, I have decided to reread the first two books of the Illuminae Files by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. Book three comes out next month and some of the details are a bit hazy. I read the books a year ago. And I'm 40% of the way through Illuminae right now and I'm loving it. It has a full cast. It's a sci-fi trilogy set in space and I have a feeling that it will kill me to finish the trilogy next month. After this, I am going to start Gemina and I cannot wait to revisit those characters as well.

I hope your week has been going well. If you've read any of these books or want to read any of these books, let's discuss them in the comments. Also, feel free to mention which book(s) you're reading now as well so we can talk about those!

Your kindred bookmate,
Cassie