It’s May! How??? Let’s wrap-up this month together, shall we. 🌸
Months fly by and nothing changes. I am still struggling personally a little bit, but I’m doing my best, I guess. I haven’t had a single day of holiday in so many months now, I’m exhausted and really, really looking forward to one day off in May. I know. One. Wild, right.
I wish I had more exciting things to share here, but the world and my mental health being what it is, I just don’t know for now.
I hope you’re all taking care of yourselves, friends.
🔍 KEEP YOURSELF INFORMED of the world’s current info & donate to important causes if you can, always. Here’s a carrd to find out what’s happening in the world right now: Get informed. With everything happening in India, here’s a twitter thread and a Google Doc for you to help.
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I think that 4 books a month might be my new rhythm? I’m a little mad about it, to be honest, because it means I’m perpertually catching up on my goodreads challenge, but well. What can I say, except that I’m trying my best?
TOKYO EVER AFTER ☂️ I had SO much fun reading this book, it reminded me of my days obsessing about The Princess Diaries. I really liked the main character, the story, the bodyguard/princess romance. It was everything I expected it to be and I loved it.
Read my review 💧 Buy the book on: Book Depository – Bookshop – Blackwell’s
DESCENDANT OF THE CRANE ☂️ After falling for The Ones We’re Meant To Find, I had to jump on the opportunity to read more from Joan He. While I had a bit of a harder time getting into this book, I still really enjoyed the ride! Despite its tough start, I ended up caring so much about the main characters and THE TWISTS. Seriously. I’m screaming.
💧 Buy the book on: Book Depository – Bookshop – Blackwell’s
WE CAN’T KEEP MEETING LIKE THIS ☂️ Rachel Lynn Solomon is one of my favorite authors and We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This just confirmed it. I fell for the romance, the family dynamics, the main character’s passion, I loved everything ahh.
💧 Buy the book on: Book Depository – Bookshop – Blackwell’s
BETWEEN YOU, ME AND THE HONEYBEES ☂️ Okay so this was another adorable, wonderful contemporary read. I loved that the main character had anxiety and could relate to that part, but I also LOVED seeing her wanting to pursue a path different than college and her passion for her bees just made me smile. The romance was SO lovely, the mother-daughter vibes gave me Rory-Lorelai feels. Really enjoyed that one!
💧 Buy the book on: Book Depository – Bookshop – Blackwell’s
Goodreads challenge: 17/60 books
Oh good, I’m 2 books behind schedule now…. Aerm. I’m trying not to look at that number so much and just enjoy myself.
April has been a little bit of a struggle, especially with my writing. There were so many times I felt lost, confused and just damn ANGRY at how slow I am at writing a first draft.
There are these light bulb moments where I’m just really enjoying myself and surprising myself, too.
Then, there are these times where I just want to hit myself over the head because I’m not fast enough and I’m rushing against a deadline made up by my own mind.
Point is: I’m trying. Slowly, but well. Someday I’ll finish that messy first draft!
Written in April: At the end of March, my WIP was at 32 427 words.
It’s May 1st as I am typing this and Scrivener is telling me my project’s at 44 046 words. So.. that’s a little over 11k written in a month. It’s less than March, but I still made some progress?
Not going to lie: it’s been kind of a bad blogging month. I don’t know if something’s going on with blogs lately, but I feel like engagement and everything has been really low. It made me feel SO down about my work, especially given the fact that I worked so hard on many blog posts I loved this past month.
C’est la vie.
I hope book blogs aren’t properly dead, because I’m ready to riot and I’m not ready to give up on book bloggers’ INCREDIBLE work.
That being said, since my mind’s weird like that, I’ve been working a little harder than usual on a project that’s been in the works since the beginning of the YEAR. I know, I’m slow, but, life. I’m really, really happy and excited to say that…
I launched a newsletter!
Why, you ask? I’ve been wanting to launch a project like that for so long. I just wanted to connect more with my readers, to be able to share my latest blog posts easier and to just, rant in your mailbox, let’s face it…. I hope you’re here for it?
What can you expect if you subscribe?
I’m still very much brainstorming on a lot of things here, especially on the number of emails you can expect from me each month. What I can tell you is that, in those emails, I plan on sharing:
- All of my latest blog posts, so you won’t ever miss one,
- Book recommendations,
- Little behind the scenes of the blog and blog’s musings,
- Exclusive book giveaways (yes. they will be international. Obviously)
- And more!
I can also tell you that, if you decide to subscribe, you will get a free book recommendations list (which I spent a little over two months on, aerm), so.. I hope you’ll join me!
Join our newsletter below:
On the blog this month: book reviews
On the blog this month: blogging, books & more
It seems like, despite feeling a little down about it all, I talked about blogging a whole damn lot this month? I decided to share 5 Things To Know Before Starting A Book Blog and basically just told myself advice I wish I’d heard before. On that… I think maybe my overwhelmed feelings came through in my Tips To Get Over Blogging and Reading Slump post, but I’m so glad I wrote it. It just made me feel better about my feelings and, you know. Sometimes you need to write it all down to feel better!
On lists, I wrote two I’m very happy about and proud of, even if they didn’t succeed the way I wanted them to, I’m still glad I put them out there. If you’re looking for ya books to make you cry, or want to see some of my favorite ya authors, feel free to read these posts!
My sister wrote her monthly post about YA retellings she recommends and they’re all SO good!
☂️ If you enjoy my work, you can support me! Every comment, like, share and more means so much already. If you’d like to do a little extra something, you can:
- 💫 Support me by tipping me on ko-fi,
- 💫 Get something from my Amazon wishlist,
- 💫 Use my affiliate links to get yourself something (no extra for you, a small tip for me!) at the bottom of my blog’s page.
- Thank you so much for reading my posts always! 🥺
I’ve been blog-hopping on and off in the past few months, but… I’ll have to say, I haven’t made it a priority. I find that I’m quickly burned out by it these days. That being said, I still want to do my very best to support book bloggers’ work as best as I can. Know that I love your work and that I got your back, I’m trying my best. You’re doing amazing.
Here’s a little selection of blog posts I’ve read and enjoyed recently!
Book Blogging:
- On The Quiet Pond, find some lovely tips to manage blogging on a busy schedule.
- Kal @ Reader Voracious has some incredible SEO tips to refresh your blog’s content.
- Veronika @ Wordy and Whimsical talks about blog burn out and how to get out of it.
- I really enjoyed Kate @ Your Tita Kate’s blog post on achieving work/life/blog balance.
- Lili @ Utopia State of Mind is one of my favorite blogger and person and she celebrates 5 years of blogging! That’s a reason to visit her blog for SURE.
- I can’t recall if I shared this already, but I’ll do it again: Nicole talks about booktube and relatable.
- Briana @ Pages Unbound shared her experience with BookTok and that was an interesting read!
Reading:
- May @ Forever and Everly wrote an excellent recommendations list filled with books by Asian authors.
- Once again, Kal does it with an excellent blog post about Readerly. I had no idea what this was.
- I love Taylor Swift and this recommendations’ list based on Fearless is amazing.
- Caro @ The Book Cheshire Cat wrote a wonderful list of books with autistic representation.
How was your month? Did you find a new favorite book this past month? I’d love to hear all about it, so feel free to tell me in comments!
Twitter ☂️ Bookstagram ☂️Goodreads ☂️ Bloglovin’ ☂️ Support the blog
MARIE!!!!! I had no idea you guys were working on a newsletter, but that’s so exciting and I immediately subscribed <3
I hope May will treat you kindly and that the one day you have off will be relaxing and rejuvinating.
AHH thank you for all of your support, Kat, it always means so, SO much. Thank you <3 <3 <3
Always, friend <3
BIG HUGS! 💕 I hope you’re doing okay! I have to say that your posts aren’t showing up in my reader anymore so I’ve saved your blog to check it when you tweet about a post so that I can read it. Also I’ve been having trouble liking posts for some reason, but I just signed up for your newsletter, can’t wait for it! 😊
The way you write about giving yourself this deadline that you feel you’re not writing fast enough for, BOY do I feel that! I did that the other day with my reviews. I had two to write (plus I wanted to finish a blog post) and I just kept getting mad at myself for not writing the reviews fast enough… and I don’t even know why, it’s not like the review is going up soon, why do we do this to ourselves?
Here’s to a better May, happy reading! 📚❤️
Oh no really? I had no idea they weren’t showing up in the reader, I don’t know why? 😧 I’ll have to look into this. Thank you SO much for letting me know! <3
I'm so sorry you can relate to that... I don't know why we keep on putting this pressure on ourselves, when we don't even have a particular deadline. We need to learn to relax 😂 I hope we both can! <3
Thank you so, so much for your sweet comment, I hope May will be kind to you! <3
You’re welcome! I hope it helps to get more attention to your blog! 💕
Right?! I don’t know why either. I’m trying to be better, I hope we both can do better!
You’re very welcome❤️! Thank you, you as well!
You’ve read some great books. I can’t wait to read Tokyo Ever After. The newsletter sounds amazing, I subscribed immediately, i always love your recommendations!
Oh thank you so much! You’re always so supportive, it means the world <3 <3 <3
Lovely blogpost! You’ve read some great books. I can’t wait to read Tokyo Ever After, that book sounds so good! The newsletter is amazing, I always love your recommendations!
I definitely felt that engagement hasn’t been the best recently. We did well in terms of overall monthly views, because people keep finding (via search engines, for the most part) some of our old posts; especially my old Shadow and Bone post where I complained has been doing well because of the interest in the show. But the new stuff we have been putting out? A lot of it didn’t do as well as I expected which is disheartening, especially with posts we put a lot of thought and work into. :/ I hope book blogs aren’t dead because I’m not ready to abandon ours and the community. I’m really looking forward to reading We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This, so I’m glad you loved it! 😀 I really love the mood board you made for you WIP – congrats on your progress and best of luck this month. 🙂 Hope you’ll have a fantastic May!
Oh I’m so glad I’m not the only one noticing that. It feels a bit strange lately? I’ve heard that some of my posts haven’t shown up on the wordpress reader for some reason…I’m not sure why is that ☹️
I really hope book blogs aren’t dead either,they don’t deserve to be, they’re such wonderful places <3
Thank you so, SO much Veronika, you're so kind <3 I hope you'll have a beautiful month <3
yay yay yay, i’m sooooo excited for the newsletter! since the pandemic started, i’ve subscribed to the newsletter of a few creators i really like and i love the format. i feel so special receiving an email every certain day of the week, hahah.
i do relate with the struggle of low blogging engagement and it’s definitely made me less motivated to write posts and work on my blog in general, which sucks because i have always prided myself on the fact i was going to continue blogging even if no one read it, but i also really enjoy interacting with people and even my blogging feed has been rather slow lately 🙁 i think everyone is just busy and it’s understandable that after SO long in this pandemic, we start feeling less and less inspired to even blog.
i hope may treats you well, marie! looking forward to the newsletter! 😊
Oh thank you so much for subscribing!! 🥺 I hope I won’t disappoint ahah this is my first try at a thing like this 🥺
I’m glad to see I’m not the only one feeling this way! The blogging world as a whole has felt a little slower lately and it makes me a bit sad. It’s understandable, but I hope that it won’t last forever!
I hope you are having a lovely May, Lais, take care <3
Oof I hope you get to take a break this month, Marie 😔❤
Img yes DOTC and WCKMLT are both such AMAZING!! So glad you read and loved them. Ahhh I hope your engagement gets better as well!!
Do I even know how to take a break,though 😂 thank you so much, you’re too sweet! <3 I hope May will be kind to you!
So happy to see that you liked Tokyo Ever After, We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This and Between You, Me and the Honeybees as I’m so excited to read all of them 🥰 I’m so hyped for your newsletter, it sounds like it’ll be full of even more amazing content ❤ Also thank you so much for sharing my post!! I hope you’re having a good May 🌸
Ahh I hope you’ll love these books, theu’re all so wonderful <3 thank you so much, Caro, I hope May will be kind to you 🥺
Ahh, you KNOW I signed up for your newsletter, yay yay yay! <3 And I hope you are CELEBRATING the fact that you wrote 11K words!? Like, that's fantastic and one helluva an achievement! I am so proud of you!
Oh thank you so, so much Nicole, you’re so kind 😭😭😭
Of course!! (It’s going to look like I unsubscribed, but I actually connected it to Feedly after upgrading to a paid account there, and I am so excited!)
Ahh thank you 🥺🥺 this is so kind of you 🥺🥺
I’m sorry your mental health hasn’t bounced back yet. I wish you could take more than one day off this month, so you get the chance to refresh and recharge! I hope may is treating you better than april xx
Melina | http://www.melinaelisa.com
Thank you so, so much Melina! I hope the month has been kind to you, sending you lots of love <3
ahh Marie i’m so excited for your newsletter, i immediately subscribed!! <3 i just added Between You, Me and the Honeybees to my TBR bc it sounds super cute :)) i really love reading all of your blog posts and i'm always cheering you on!! and i hope May is going better for you, sending you so many hugs and support! i hope you're taking care of yourself and get some time to rest, you deserve it 💓
Ahh thank you so, so much!! 🥺🥺 I’m trying my best, thank you <3 I hope May is kind to you, take care 🥺
It looks like you read some great books this past month! 🙂 I absolutely love the book cover for We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This! I love the lavender/purple color so much. I hope May has been a better writing month for you. <3 I will be subscribing to your newsletter as soon as I post this comment. <3 <3
It is such a pretty cover, yes! I hope you’ll get a chance to read it <3 and thank you so much!! <3