Well, April was almost as bad as March in terms of how many books I read. I only read 5, but I’m coming to terms with my unimpressive reading stats. Life is so full of so many other good things that I can’t complain.

In April, I read:

My Name is Not Easy by Debby Dahl Edwardson
Just Your Average Princess by Kristina Springer
Divergent by Veronica Roth
When Things Get Dark: A Mongolian Winter’s Tale by Matthew Davis
What Boys Really Want by Pete Hautman

3 female authors
2 male authors
1 nonfiction book
4 fiction books
1 main character of color (Luke in My Name is Not Easy is Inupiaq Eskimo.)

The best book I read was Divergent. Why do I always put off reading dystopian books that everyone raves about, thinking they don’t sound like I would enjoy them? I did it with The Hunger Games – which I loved – and I did it with Divergent, which is also amazing. The good thing is I don’t have long to wait for the sequel, since Insurgent came out May 1st. I haven’t gotten it yet, but it’s good to know I can read it whenever I get a chance.

Just Your Average Princess was ok, but pretty forgettable. I liked My Name is Not Easy, but I think I was expecting more. It’s also kind of hard for me to connect with books set during the 60s, for some reason. There was so little I had in common with Luke and the other kids that it was hard for me to grasp the significance of everything they went through. I liked What Boys Really Want well enough except that the name of the book in the book is just What Boys Want and the discrepancy bothered me more than it should have. It was a fun read but I’ve already forgotten most of it, so it was nothing outstanding.

When Things Go Dark elicited the most complicated feelings from me of any book so far this year. I lived in Mongolia for two years when I was little and have my own memories of the country. It’s such a unique place that it’s very strange for me to read someone else’s account of their time there. Some of it made me cry, from shared remembrance of things both positive and negative. There really is no sky like the sky of the Mongolian countryside and there are days when I feel homesick for it. It’s not the best book I’ve ever read, but if you ever want to know what Mongolia’s like, you need to read it. The author intersperses his memoir with accounts of Mongolian history and while I’m normally bored to tears by history, I wasn’t even tempted to skip over those parts. I learned a lot about why the country is the way it is from its history and also realized just how soon after the Iron Curtain fell my family lived in Mongolia. I would love to go back for a visit and see how accurate my memories are, as well as how much has changed. It would be eye-opening, to say the least. I think about Mongolia, the open countryside, the wildflowers, and whatever these things are (they’re a good 3 inches long; my brother would pick them up and carry them around attached to his shirt, much to my mother’s horror) at least once a week and When Things Go Dark rekindled my desire to go back and visit. Someday.

Until next month, happy reading!

(And just to be as incongruous as possible, in awkward juxtaposition with my account of books and Mongolia-reminiscing, here’s my most recent pole accomplishment, of which I’m ridiculously proud: iguana to planche).

This post is almost embarrassing to write. Since I started keeping track in January 2010, I’ve read at least 8 books a month and at most 19, with an average of about 13. In March, however, I read 4. Just 4. How pitiful is that? I’ve been so busy it’s not even funny. My roommate even commented that I’ve hardly been reading recently, so you know it’s serious.

I started a new job February 20th and competed in a pole fitness competition March 3rd (video here if you’re curious, and no, I’m no longer working at the library but that was the bio they had) and between work and pole four nights a week – I also just started teaching pole classes one night a week – I hardly have any time to do anything. Oh, and I’m taking gymnastics classes twice a week as well. And I just auditioned for and made a performing arts group, Elevated Aerial Dance, so I practice with them at least 3 hours a week, too. So, you know, I’m super busy. Still, I’m sad that I haven’t had more time to read. I may have to cut down on my blog reading in order to get in some book reading!

Anyway, on to the books! In March I read:

Winter Town by Stephen Emond
The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
Stupid Fast by Geoff Herbach
Why We Broke Up by David Handler and illustrated by Maira Kalman

I read
4 young adult fiction books
3 books by a male author
1 book by a female author

Pretty boring. At least the book I’m reading now does not have white main characters. Finally, I’m reading something with ethnic diversity!

My favorite was The Scorpio Races because it was AMAZING. I definitely wasn’t expecting to like it as much as I did, because I didn’t really like Shiver, the only other book I’d read by Stiefvater and I’m not a huge horse girl, but the capaill uisce are no ordinary horses and this is no ordinary horse book. It’s wonderful and I think it’s one of those books that calls for a reread. My least favorite was Why We Broke Up. The main character is a little too emo for me and spends far too much time over-analyzing every little aspect of her short, very high-schoolish relationship. Maybe I would’ve enjoyed it more if I were in high school when I read it, but now, I just wanted to roll my eyes the whole time. Thankfully, all of these books had good covers, but Winter Town takes the cake. Paper punch snowflakes!

I honestly don’t have high hopes for reading success in April, but anything is better than nothing. My goal is to read 5 books.

Goodness gracious, this past month was insane. I started a new job which immediately took up about 50 hours of my week, plus I was practicing almost every day for a pole fitness competition that was held last weekend in Orlando. I literally have not picked up a book in over a week, which is the longest stretch of time I’ve gone without reading in several years. Ugh. My goal for February was 15 books, but I fell just shy. My diversity in genre and author genre was deplorable and I vow to do better this month once I have time to actually read some of the 29 books I have out from the library. (Seriously. It’s a little out of control.)

The 14 books I read in February, in order:

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Bitter is the New Black by Jen Lancaster
The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
Every You, Every Me by David Levithan
Out from Boneville by Jeff Smith
Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins
Bunheads by Sophie Flack
Past Perfect by Leila Sales
The Lovely Shoes by Susan Shreve
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (reread before the movie!)
The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson
Notes from an Accidental Band Geek by Erin Dionne
Pearl by Jo Knowles
Putting Makeup on the Fat Boy by Bil Wright

I read
1 nonfiction book
1 adult fiction book
1 middle grade graphic novel
11 young adult fiction books
1 book with a non-white main character
5 books by a male author
9 books by a female author

I guess my diversity improved a tiny bit from last month since in January every single main character was white. Yikes, that’s something I really need to work on. I did read one non-contemporary book (The Lovely Shoes is set in the 1950s) which is a huge step for me.

I didn’t do this for January, but my favorite cover from February was Bunheads:

Isn’t it so pretty?

My favorite book from February is probably The Fault in Our Stars because, c’mon, it’s John Green. I did enjoy Bunheads a lot too, but I doubt anyone unfamiliar with ballet would as much. Reading about high school marching band was fun since I’ve never read about it before and it brought back a TON of memories. Oh yes, perhaps unsurprisingly, I was a total band geek in high school. My least favorite book was The Marriage Plot: I really shouldn’t have wasted my time by forcing myself to finish it. I first read Eugenides in college when I randomly picked up Middlesex, and I LOVED it. Last year I finally got around to reading The Virgin Suicides and was pretty meh about it, but I was excited to read his latest. It’s awful. So boring and I hated the characters.

I have way too many books currently checked out from the library and since I don’t work there anymore, I don’t get 6 weeks per checkout, which means I probably won’t get through them all. Super sad. Instead of reading in the order I checked the books out, I might have to read by which ones I really want to read first so I can get to them before I have to return them and they go back on the holds list.

I’m just now reading my first book in March, so my new goal is 10 books for this month. We’ll see how that goes!

I know it’s been a while, but I thought I’d update with the books I read during the month of January. I keep an almost neurotic list of the books I read via Goodreads, stopping only at updating the page number I’m on. I decided to add some more categories to my books so it’ll be easier for me to keep track of what I’m interested in knowing about my reading, mainly how much nonfiction I read (I’m really trying to read more), whether it’s adult or young adult, and the gender of the authors I’m reading.

In January, I only read 11 books, just below par with my average number of books – 13 – per month in 2011. I’d like to up that number to 15 a month in 2012, but we’ll see how that goes.

Here they are, in the order I read them:

Dreamland Social Club by Tara Altebrando
Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
Everybody Sees the Ants by A.S. King
Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick by Joe Schreiber
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth by Alexandra Robbins
Leverage by Joshua C. Cohen
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley
Don’t Breathe a Word by Jennifer McMahon
Flyaway by Lucy Christopher

I’ve read two and a half books so far in February, so I hope to get to at least 15 this month.

As for the breakdown, I read
1 nonfiction book
3 adult fiction books (I go by the library label)
7 young adult fiction books
4 books by a male author
7 books by a female author

I’m going to try to read at least one nonfiction a month (which I already have down for February, though it’s a memoir and reads much like fiction) and aim for a pretty even split in male and female authors. I would also like to read more books with main characters who aren’t white and able-bodied, but I’m not sure I’ll make a category for those on Goodreads yet. It is kind of concerning that all of the main characters I read in February were white, though I guess that Karou from The Daughter of Smoke and Bone is of indeterminate ancestry.

The best book I read in January was Leverage but it wasn’t the most fun to read by a long shot. Parts of it are horrible and awful, but they also describe real things that happen to far too many people. Don’t Breathe a Word was chilling, even more so because I read most of it in bed at night, heart racing as I tried to ignore all the shadows in my room and devour the book as fast as I could. The rest of the books didn’t stand out to me that much, but none were bad reads.

I know it was almost a month ago now, but I just now got my pictures uploaded because I’m a winning procrastinator.

I went to three panels and the YA smackdown at the end of the day. The first panel I went to was Reality Bites because I’m a contemporary girl all the way. David Levithan, Natalie Standiford and Holly Goldberg Sloan were on the panel with Andrea Cremer moderating. Of course, the only authors I’d read before finding out who was going to be at YAllFest were David, Natalie and Holly. I really liked everyone who spoke and it was fascinating to hear a little about the writing process. It was good to hear that even if your story is set somewhere real, you can make up things to suit you. For example, Natalie said that if she needs a coffeeshop at a particular corner, she’ll put one there even if it doesn’t exist in real life. This was the only panel my boyfriend attended with me (he spent the rest of the afternoon in a restaurant watching football, lol) and the other day when I was trying to figure out where the cruise ship in my story was going to crash, looking at Google maps and seeing if there was anything between Miami and the Bahamas, he reminded me of that moment and said I could put one there if I needed one. He was paying attention!

The second panel I went to was Putting the YALL in YAllFest with Saundra Mitchell, Michelle Hodkin, Katie Crouch and Carrie Ryan with Beth Revis moderating. Okay, guys? Carrie Ryan is awesome. I kind of fell in love with her a bit during this panel. She just seemed so kind and cool and I wanted to be her friend and have her over for dinner. Everyone else was great too, though I can’t remember much from this panel beside lots of laughing and trying to survive zombie apocalypses. Oh, and Beth Revis is AWESOME. Look! A picture!

She’s one of the coolest people ever, I’m pretty sure. So confident and friendly and just cool, in a way I never will be.

Then she and I hurried over to the Don’t Dis-topian panel where she was talking along with Kimberly Derting, Eliot Schrefer, and Diana Peterfreund. Sarah Rees Brennan moderated, hilariously. It was really interesting to hear them talk about what inspired them and their novels and I’ll never forget Eliot’s story about this kid at a reform boarding school who had to carry around a duffel bag with two bowling balls in it until he grew his own balls (according to the headmaster at the school). It was pretty ridiculous.

The last event of the evening was a smackdown with all the authors divided into groups: mystery, paranormal, dystopian and contemporary (I think those were the categories. Don’t quote me on the mystery and paranormal ones though!) It was fun, but a little haphazard. I think it’ll be so much better next year now that everyone’s seen how this year’s went.

After the smackdown I tried to get a picture with everyone in it, but I had to take two:

Caitlin Kittredge, Carrie Ryan, Beth Revis, Isaac Marion (I think), Michelle Hodkin, Kimberly Derting, Victoria Schwab, Sarah Rees Brennan, Katie Crouch, Adele Griffin, Pseudonymous Bosch, Lisa Brown, Margaret Stohl, Kami Garcia, Kwame Alexander, Melissa de la Cruz and Eliot Schrefer

Lisa Brown, Margaret Stohl, Kami Garcia, Kwame Alexander, Melissa de la Cruz, Eliot Schrefer, Marjory Wentworth, Heather Brewer, David Levithan, Andrea Cremer, Holly Goldberg Sloan, Ellen Hopkins, Natalie Standiford and Kaleb Nation

 It was so crazy being in a room with all of those authors! And finally, the best picture of the day:

AHH! DAVID LEVITHAN!

Thankfully – and amazingly – I kept my cool around him and didn’t do anything too weird or fangirly.

It was so much fun and I’m already looking forward to next year!