Great Cities – The Bookish Mutant

Happy Friday, bibliophiles!

How is March already almost over?? Mentally I’m still in the first week…but it’s spring break, so that’s always good. And although I woke up sick this morning, at least I have boygenius, the cure for all that ails. Maybe their queer antibodies will help me fight this nastiness off before I have to go back to school.

[shaking the image file for the record on my iTunes library] c’mon, man, do your thing…

GENERAL THOUGHTS:

I still can’t bring myself to believe that I’m almost done with my first year of college. It feels like I should have at least 5 months left, or something…how? Either way, it’s been much easier on me taking mostly humanities classes, and even with midterms, I’ve been able to keep my head above the water. The weather’s slowly but surely starting to warm up—there were a few days were it felt like early summer, and then we got snow the very next day, and if that isn’t Colorado weather in a nutshell, then I don’t know what is. But I’ve savored the little moments—the bits of sunshine that come through the trees in the morning, the view from my dorm, and the day I had both my classes off, so I visited my friend at my dorm for next year and got coffee on the way back.

My reading’s been a little bit slower, I suppose since I’ve had several books to read for at least 3 classes, so I’ve had to read a lot of them in smaller chunks. They’ve been very different but all very good books—again, what I love about college (or at least being an English major) is that I’ve been reading books I’d never imagine reading in an academic setting—Annihilation and Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass were both on my reading list this month. I’ve managed to get some other great reads in as well, even though I had to slow down for midterms. It was harder to see since I slowed down more than usual, but it was a pretty solid reading month—only 2 books in the 2-star range, so that’s always a plus in my book (no pun intended).

Other than that, I’ve just been drawing, playing Minecraft over break (you have NO IDEA the absolute havoc some loose axolotls can do to an ocean ecosystem), watching Flight of the Conchords (as hilarious as I imagined it being), season 2 of Shadow & Bone, and Dark, and wishing for all this snow to melt. I swear that one pile of slush outside of the dining hall has been there since January…

READING AND BLOGGING:

I read 18 books this month! Better than I thought I’d done, given midterms. I found my first 5-star read of the year, though, and I also participated in the #transreadathon for the week of March 20-27, and found some great reads as a result!

2 – 2.75 stars:

Nightwatch on the Hinterlands – K. Eason (⭐️⭐️)
Spin (Spin Saga, #1) – Robert Charles Wilson (⭐️⭐️.5)

3 – 3.75 stars:

*The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester*

I Was Born for This – Alice Oseman (⭐️⭐️⭐️)
The Shape of Water – Guillermo del Toro and Daniel Kraus (⭐️⭐️⭐️)
The World We Make (Great Cities, #2) – N.K. Jemisin (⭐️⭐️⭐️.25)
The City in the Middle of the Night – Charlie Jane Anders (⭐️⭐️⭐️.25)
Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries, #3) – Martha Wells (⭐️⭐️⭐️.5)
Katzenjammer – Francesca Zappia (⭐️⭐️⭐️.5)
Exit Strategy (The Murderbot Diaries, #4) – Martha Wells (⭐️⭐️⭐️.5)
The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester – Maya MacGregor (⭐️⭐️⭐️.75)

4 – 4.75 stars:

The Obelisk Gate (The Broken Earth, #2) – N.K. Jemisin (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
Kindred – Octavia E. Butler (re-read) (for school) (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass – Mariko Tamaki and Steve Pugh (for school) (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
Annihilation (Southern Reach, #1) – Jeff VanderMeer (for school) (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
A Million Quiet Revolutions – Robin Gow (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
We Are the Fire – Sam Taylor (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
The Thirty Names of Night – Zeyn Joukhadar (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.25)

5 stars:

Story of Your Life – Ted Chiang (for school) (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

FAVORITE BOOK OF THE MONTH: Story of Your Life – 5 stars

POSTS I’M PROUD OF:

I had fun reviewing The Fifth Season, Nightwatch on the Hinterlands, and The Shape of Water!
My last review of the month was a collection of mini reviews for the #TransRightsReadathon!
I reviewed the new Gorillaz album, Cracker Island!
I made another list of Feminist YA books for Women’s History Month!
I rambled more about music in my Sunday Songs: 3/5, 3/12, 3/19, and 3/26!

POSTS FROM OTHER WONDERFUL PEOPLE THAT I ENJOYED:

SONGS/ALBUMS THAT I’VE BEEN ENJOYING:

DE LA SOUL IS ON STREAMING GO LISTEN GO LISTEN

John Lennon put everything into that inhale huh

the only musical jumpscare that I find myself actively seeking out

SUCH a good EP

the fact that this song only took a week to get to #3 on my most played songs on apple music should say something about it…or me

delightful song, gorgeous video, solid album!!

Today’s song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Foqlg4g1YM

TODAY’S THE DAAAAAAAAAAAY

That’s it for this month in blogging! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well, and for everyone in the Texas area, stay safe out there. Lots of love. 💗

Reading-wise, I’d say it’s been a bit of a hit-or-miss week. A lot of what I read fell in the 3-star range, but I did find another 5-star read! I still have some of my library haul from this week left to read, as well as some Hellboy books my dad lent to me (thank you!) and 3 eARCs I got approved for. So expect a lot of reviews in the next few weeks!

Writing-wise, I’m nearly done with my sci-fi outline, but I switched gears later in the week because my mom found this writing contest that I’m interested in. I’m now shifting over to outlining/writing a short story, and I’m really excited to get into it!

Other than that, I just drew a bit, rewatched more Fargo, got caught up on WandaVision (OH MY GOD THAT LAST EPISODE), volunteered at the library, and drank a whole lot of hot chocolate.

Also, I thought that the new Julien Baker album came out today, but no, not until the 26th…[cries]

WHAT I READ THIS WEEK:

The City We Became (Great Cities, #1) – N.K. Jemisin (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)