End of May Review
End of May Review
May has been a fast, yet productive month. I found another lone weekend to work and other moments of spare time. Because of this, my goals have advanced and changed. May was a good month.
Books Read and/or Reviewed
As for my independent reviews, I’m happy to say I’m back on track, doing roughly one a week while my semester proceeds, which does, of course, mean only roughly three weeks left. Nonetheless, these are the independent books I’ve reviewed this month: First, a book by another ex-pat in Korea, Super Nobody. Overall, it was okay but had structural and dialog problems. The second one was Falcon Boy. I found it too be difficult with its lack of plot and character, and the unnecessary breaking of the fourth wall.
The third indie book was The Fantastic Fable of Peter Able. True, this was published through Amazon’s Kindle Scout, but as an Indie writer wrote it, I felt it fitting, and sadly, was very similar to the earlier read—jumbled plot, fourth wall…and so on. The finally independent book was Echo: Approaching Shatter. It was definitely a story, so I like it, but had large info dumps and took too long to get to the action.
As for my other reading, I got through the highly acclaimed All The Light We Cannot See. I must say I like the writing but found the story somewhat lackluster. The one thing I did enjoy that it wasn’t just another Holocaust book. I do tire of the same old fascination with Nazis and WWII. One reason I didn’t enjoy Book Thief. On a similar note, I re-read with one of my students, Everything is Illuminated, and despite being all about the Holocaust, this book was still quite good in its creativity and unique style.
Lastly, I got through one comic, Zita the Spacegirl. It was light and fun with ok twists and characters. I did want more from it, but it was…ok. And I tackled my first John Green book, Paper Towns. It had his signature youthful style, and although I loved the beginning, the momentum and the characters grew stale by the end. On top of that, the resolution was too grandiose and ambiguous. I did expect better.
Book Reviews Received
Sadly, despite sending review copies of the third Chewy out to many people, I’ve only received one more review for it. This review comes from the wonderful Nayu over at her book corner. I suggest you go check out her unique interests.
http://nayusreadingcorner.blogspot.kr/2016/05/chewy-noh-and-march-of-death-by-tim.html
Progress on 2016 goals
Finish Chewy 5: This one has been sent to my Alpha reviewer, so I can cross it off. In exchange for it, I’ve already moved onto the next writing goal I have, to start a new book and get some details ready. During the summer break, I want to write as much as possible of it, if not complete it as well.
Read ‘The Recognitions’: This is my best month so far. As of the end of May, I now have 700 pages completed in this monster. That means in just one busy month, I doubled what I’ve already read in the past two. With one month until the end of this semester, I’m right on track to getting it done in time to relax this summer.
Compiling my Editing book: I don’t even want to talk about it. Sigh. I have no motivation here, but I will get to it. Eventually, I will kick myself into gear. It always happens. I just can’t predict it.
Next Month’s Agenda
With the end of the term, I’ll be having much more time unless I’m grading. This means I’ve got to wrap things up not only with my second goal, but with my preparation for the summer writing. Quite possibly the editing book will sit cold again, but with three weeks of school left, I only need to do three more indie reviews and then my reading schedule opens up as well.
