May 2018 Wrap-Up & Best of the Bunch

Posted June 1, 2018 by Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction in Best of the Bunch, Monthly Recap / 34 Comments

 

My Goings On in May:

  • I am officially done teaching. Even though my oldest is still technically being homeschooled, she’s taking all her classes at the local community college now, and I’m not really teaching her anything anymore. My middle child is headed to public high school next year, so I won’t be teaching her classes at the co-op next fall. And my youngest has always been in the special education program at our public school because I just don’t have the know-how or the resources to teach him. So, that means I’m done. Forever. (Well, probably—I mean, you never know.) It’s really sort of bittersweet.
  • I watched The Rain and Fear the Walking Dead while doing the elliptical. I ended up writing a whole post about subtitles vs. dubbing for The Rain. I’m loving the series and only have one episode to go. I was happy to see they just renewed it for a second season.
  • We watched Downsizing, which started out good but sort of disappointed a bit in the end.
  • We celebrated Mother’s Day and Danielle’s 14th birthday with family. My in-laws came back from the half year they spend in Arizona, so it was good to see them again.

Features & Discussions:

May 2018 Discussion Challenge & Giveaway – Link up any last May discussion posts here and enter to win!
April 2018 Wrap-Up & Best of the Bunch
My Newly Organized Bookcases! Let’s Discuss.
March/April Wrap-Up Round-Up “Make Me Read It” Giveaway
My First Time Switching Between an Audiobook and a Print Book. Let’s Discuss!
The Rain on Netflix: Danish or English? (Subbed or Dubbed?) Let’s Discuss.
Fun with SPAM! #4
May 2018 Monthly Wrap-Up Round-Up Link-Up – Link up your May wrap-up posts here!

My 2018 Reading Progress:

I’m 15 books ahead of my Goodreads Reading goal! (Of course, I halved it this year.)

May 2018 Reviews

I got a lot more reviews up this month than the last couple!

  • The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl by Stacy McAnulty | Review | Rating: 4.5/5
  • Hiding Lies by Julie Cross | Review | Rating: 3.5/5
  • A Quiet Kind of Thunder by Sara Barnard | Review | Rating: 5/5
  • Alex, Approximately by Jenn Bennett | Review | Rating: 4/5
  • The Lost Path by Amélie Fléchais | Review | Rating: 4/5
  • Bubble by Anders de la Motte | Review | Rating: 3.5/5
  • The Way You Make Me Feel by Maurene Goo | Review | Rating: 4/5

  • The Girl and the Grove by Eric Smith | Review | Rating: 4/5
  • Refugee by Alan Gratz | Review | Rating: 4.5/5**
  • Now a Major Motion Picture by Cori McCarthy | Review | Rating: 3.5/5
  • Captain Superlative by J.S. Puller | Review | Rating: 3.5/5
  • Smile by Raina Telgemeier | Review | Rating: 4/5

  • Sisters by Raina Telgemeier | Review | Rating: 4/5
  • LIFEL1K3 by Jay Kristoff | Review | Rating: 4/5

**A dual review with AJ @ Read All the Things

May Best of the Bunch:

(Best of the Bunch is hosted over at Cocoon of Books. We link up our favorite reads of the month!)

A Quiet Kind of Thunder won a 5-star rating this month. I so loved the Deaf rep in this book! But I also want to give an honorable mention to Refugee because it’s the type of book that everyone should read.


2018 Reading Challenges/Goals Progress:

If you didn’t see my update a couple of months ago, I decided to stop doing most of my challenges. Priorities.

Status: 11/31-40 Discussions Posted

I actually wrote a few discussions this month! That’s cause for celebration for me lately!

My Newly Organized Bookcases!
My First Time Switching Between an Audiobook and a Print Book.
The Rain on Netflix: Danish or English? (Subbed or Dubbed?)
Why Is Voice in Writing So Hard? And Do You Think About It When You Read?
Expectations About POC Names in Books.
Great Reasons to Get to Know Your Bookish Friends Better
Top 10 of 2017: Books I’m Looking Forward to in 2018
2017 End of Year Book Survey
My Writing & Reading Goals for 2018
My Book Outlet Weakness (& Why My Latest Haul Is All Your Fault)
Which Types of Reviews Are Most Effective? Let’s Discuss!

HOST/SIGN-UP LINK – Feed Your Fiction Addiction & It Starts at Midnight


Status: QUIT

Our team actually won last month, but wouldn’t you know it, Austine sent out an email that she has to stop running the contests and giveaways for this challenge. I get that life can sometimes be overwhelming, so I definitely feel for her! Since I was really only sticking to this challenge so I didn’t let my teammates down (and that’s no longer a concern), I decided to throw in the towel on this one.

HOST/SIGN-UP LINK – Novel Knight


My 2018 Goals Progress:

  • Complete a second edit of my MG novel. Done!
  • Attend a writing workshop. I signed up for one in June!
  • Read more writing craft books/materials. Yikes! Okay, guys, I need to get serious about this. I’ve done it a little, but not nearly enough.
  • Finish the first draft of YA novel. I still haven’t moved back to my YA book, since I’ve been focusing on working with my CPs on the MG.
  • Read one review book for every one that I request/receive. ) I got 9 review books this month (mostly due to a little NetGalley/Edelweiss binge that I indulged in), but amazingly, I posted reviews for 13! (So far for the year, I’ve received 38 and read 43, so I’m definitely ahead!)
  • Read more middle grade. SIX of my reviews this month were MG!! (I’ve reviewed 11 MGs so far this year.)
  • Work out! Still doing okay with this. I could do better, but it’s a whole lot better than I was doing during the school year.

Wrap-Up Round-Up!

Don’t forget to link your May wrap-up posts up to the Monthly Wrap-Up Round-Up! And check out the giveaway, which will be posted here on Feed Your Fiction Addiction right around the 7th!

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34 responses to “May 2018 Wrap-Up & Best of the Bunch

  1. Looks like you had a good reading month! I’m still excited to read LIFEL1K3 even though I’ve seen a lot of mixed reviews. Also congrats on being done with teaching and yay for reading more MG! I’m trying to do that as well and have a few MG ARC’s coming up throughout the year.

    Hope you have a good June Nicole!

    Bee (Quite The Novel Idea / Novel Ink) recently posted: Monthly Novel Rewind: May 2018
  2. Awesome job on your goodreads goal! I am stinking at life this year and my goal isn’t where i want it to be.
    I give you lots of credit for home schooling, for me that always seemed hard. My son is also in a special needs program so I was never able to homeschool him. I actually considered it in the beginning. He’s in a good school now so it worked out for the best.

    You had some amazing reads!
    I hope you June is just as awesome as your May! 🙂

    Michelle@Because Reading recently posted: Monthly Book Report for May (and April) 2018
  3. I’m getting ready to homeschool my first! I have a degree in Education, but it’s always different when you apply it to your children. I understand the bittersweet feelings, though.

    I had no idea Novel Knight was cancelling the challenge this year! I just viewed her post since I didn’t get the email, and I can definitely understand her reasons. Sometimes we just lack the time and the resources to continue with something like that. I cannot imagine how much energy she put into that every month. It’s a big task! I think I might still keep up with mine, because I wanted to challenge myself to read a lot of my older books, but I probably won’t worry about adding the links anymore.

    L @ Do You Dog-ear?

    Lindsi recently posted: It's My Birthday Giveaway!
  4. Yay for being so far ahead on your Goodreads total! And congrats on having finished teaching, even if it is bittersweet.
    Have a great June 🙂

  5. Jen

    I love that you have an honorable mention! It’s soooooo hard just choosing one. Especially if they are in different genres. I hate comparing a dystopian to a romance etc. The struggle is real lol!

    I’ve been trying to decide whether I should quit or stay in Beat the Backlist. I was only staying in because of helping my team out with points. And I’ve actually done better than I thought I would. Hmmm idk……

    Jen recently posted: Monthly Wrap-Up – May
  6. I’ve really got to go back and do a first edit of my short story I think. I wish I was doing as good as you are on my Goodreads reading challenge, I’m still about 18 books behind. 🙁 Hopefully I’ll be able to get caught up this summer. I may have to cut my number back. I’ve always gone up by like 5 a year, but maybe doing more writing this year has cut into reading time. I had a couple discussion post ideas for this past month, but the end of the school year got so busy I didn’t get to them. Hoping to have time this summer. Hope you have a great June!

    Lisa Mandina (Lisa Loves Literature) recently posted: Review: Challenge Accepted (Cleat Chasers #1) by Jacqueline Snowe
  7. I keep forgetting to put in my backlist books for the challenge, but I am in a Twitter group chat with some of my teammates and we still like chatting books. So I’m still trying to focus on backlist books, but mostly for myself right now.

    Aw, that must be bittersweet to not be teaching anymore. I hope it just means you can do a lot more writing and be published quicker!! 🙂 I know you’ll get there one day.

    -Lauren

  8. I imagine it is bittersweet being done with teaching. Sending you a big hug. I think it’s incredible what you’ve been able to do. My daughter has another two weeks to go in our local school.I know it’s cliche to say, but they really do grow up too fast.

    You are doing great with your reading goals! I can’t remember what mind is on Goodreads. I should look. LOL I didn’t sum up my challenges in May. I didn’t even come close to having a discussion post done. It was a bad month for blogging for me.

    I am glad to see you liked LIFEL1K3. I have that one to read.

    I hope you have a great June! I am not sure I’ll be blogging any better, but one can hope. 🙂

    Here’s my wrap up for May:
    https://www.literaryfeline.com/2018/06/weekly-mews-may-in-review-my-june-tbr.html

  9. That’s cool that you’re done with classes now. What will you be concentrating on from now on? I feel like it will probably open up a lot of free time for you now?

    LOL fun with spam, I gotta see that 😀

    And I’m also ahead of my goodreads goal! *High-fives*

    Wait, so is beat the backlist shutting down completely? Cause I was never in it for the prizes! I just want to do well and win xD our team was last, and we’re finally doing better this year. I was hoping we’d get ahead ;_;

    Evelina @ AvalinahsBooks recently posted: [Monthly wrapup] May Stats Fever! 2018
    • Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner—I think the Backlist Challenge is still going on in some form, but Austine isn’t doing the monthly counts or giveaways. At least that’s how I understand it. I would have stayed in, but I’ve been so busy that I’d already cut back on everything else. Since I was really only sticking to that one for my team, and it seemed like the monthly team competition was going away, I decided to let it go.

  10. I like beat the backlast but I’m not that motivated anymore. I already hit my first goal. I read a bunch of backlist as is and I haven’t felt like submitting points in like a month, even before she send out the email so yeah. I might just only keep track of it for myself or just submit the read points and not the review ones.

    Annemieke recently posted: Dancing Out of May 2018
  11. Eep I can understand how finishing schooling your kids would be bittersweet! My mum was at a huge lost when she finished homeschooling us and sent the youngest to highschool! (And my sister only went to highschool to finish up because she was too lonely without any of us other siblings still working haha.) But seems like a good month!? I hope June treats you wonderfully as well!

  12. You are kind of killing your goals. Good for you! I never taught my own child, but my time as a public school teacher, are the 12 years I refer to as “the dark years”. No love lost between me and teaching. So happy to see AWKoT as your Best of the Bunch. I loved that book so much, and just want to read more and more of Bernard’s books.

    Sam@WLABB recently posted: In a Nutshell Reviews
  13. Danielle Hammelef

    I hope your summer is going well. I see you read some fun books and overall enjoyed your picks. I’ve been reading ARCs for review lately and have decided that I can’t read self-published ones anymore without having read an author’s work before. I’m also reading more middle grade and clean YA romance.

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