TBR List Update: July

 

I'm working my way through #VirtualMountTBR2025. Here's my current To-Be-Read List, and here's the list of titles I have read this year.

In July 2025

Books read: 2

Books I decided NOT to finish: 3

Little Rot: I keep intending to read more Emezi (I really got into Pet and the prequel, Bitter, which are for younger audiences), but this time around decided I didn't need a dose of "poison of power, sexual violence, murder, betrayals".

Sideshow: This one has been on the list for a while, and I was going to save it for October, but it's since left the library collection and I didn't care enough about reading it to track it down with interlibrary loan.

These Is My Words: I couldn't hang with the audiobook. When I checked the time and found I was only two and a half hours in (with eleven more to go!), I immediately noped out.

Life Undercover

Books left on the TBR List: 31 (plus 5 checked out/in progress)

Best book of the month: Never Flinch

No surprise here. I waited on the library hold list for a month (and it would have been longer but I placed holds on multiple editions and got a large-print version while I was still #5 on the list for the standard one). 

Worst book of the month: The Bog Wife

I am learning that Gothic looks cute in fashion but it's really not my literary genre. I have sufficient looming dread in my life already, thanks. This Appalachian Gothic tale dragged on and just seemed to get more depressing without answering my questions. I had a whole backstory and twist anticipated that turned out to be entirely unfounded, and I wish this book had been that one.

I didn't read any books the entire first week of the month, although I could've downloaded something from Hoopla or Libby. I just scrolled a lot and watched some TV I don't usually get a chance to see (The Gilded Age is back for a third season!) and idly wished I had books in front of me. *yawn* Lazy summer. Then I started a lot of new books/audiobooks and didn't like any of them much. THEN Stephen King came through!

TBR List Update: June

                    

I'm working my way through #VirtualMountTBR2025. Here's my current To-Be-Read List, and here's the list of titles I have read this year.

In June 2025

Books read: 8

Books I decided NOT to finish: 1

The Garden: Recommended solely by title by a colleague. I struggled with the slowness of the plot and the sense of looming dread. Obviously there were secrets behind the life of these weird sisters, but when I realized I was more than halfway through the book without having learned any, I acknowledged that I just wasn't curious enough to sit through the rest.

Life Undercover

Books left on the TBR List: 34 (plus 4 checked out/in progress)

Best book of the month: Plants That Feed Us

Surprise! A nonfiction title for young readers from the 1950s captured my attention. Although I have a few concerns that might need fact-checking (such as the etymology of "gumbo" originating from Portuguese sailors? Not enslaved West Africans?) and tripped over a couple of publishing-date-appropriate anachronisms (tinned powdered mustard on your mom's shopping list?), I'd feel comfortable transmitting most of the content to my small gardener as we work together on the vegetable beds and in the kitchen.

Worst book of the month: Jay's Gay Agenda

I feel bad, because it's nice to have queer rep in YA lit, and less of it is about men. But I had to convince myself to keep going (against my proclamation of only-what-I-like!) and didn't really love it. Maybe it's an authentic take on what it's like to be a gay teen guy, but I kept wishing there wasn't so much about the main character's pantsfeelings.

I actually returned most of my library check-outs at one point this month. Then I got fussy because I didn't want to finish the book I was in the middle of, didn't have anything else to read, and checked out five more. Once I read a chapter or two of each and decided I could keep going, I only DNFed one of the five (and I finished the one I'd gotten stuck on in the first place). Later, when I ran out of books at camp for a week, I made use of their lending library shelves. So not much progress on the TBR list overall.

TBR List Update: May

                   

I'm working my way through #VirtualMountTBR2025. Here's my current To-Be-Read List, and here's the list of titles I have read this year.

In May 2025

Books read: 9

Books I decided NOT to finish: 1

Courageous Love: I'm glad this was written, for those many grandparents who are raising their grandkids and need support. I'm not going to read it cover to cover, though.

Life Undercover

Books left on the TBR List: 33 (plus 4 checked out/in progress)

Best book of the month: The Briar Club

Full of social mores and political concerns from the 1950s and a strong ensemble cast that I was more or less able to keep sorted, this story had some predictable and some surprising twists before concluding its whodunit throughline.

Worst book of the month: [none]

All good experiences this month!

TBR List Update: April

                  

I'm working my way through #VirtualMountTBR2025. Here's my current To-Be-Read List, and here's the list of titles I have read this year.

In April 2025

Books read: 8

Books I decided NOT to finish: 5

What She Ate: I only finished the first of 6 sections. I really thought there would be more on the actual food and foodways of the time/culture.

First Love: Eh. Tales of adolescent wildness rarely hold me; I don't relate. I thought there would be more variety in the short stories.

All Fours: Why is this on my list? Because some recommendation list told me so. Eh. *raspberry at "should"*

The Union: I wanted to get into this, but the story moved too fast, with huge stakes before I got invested in any of the characters. I wanted to know more about both the individuals and their world.

Persuasion: This was on the list from a colleague's recommendation more than a year ago, but I let it go.

Life Undercover

Books left on the TBR List: 33 (plus 6 checked out/in progress; I put some back that I'd had checked out for a while but hope to read later)

Best book of the month: Ammonite

I learned three new words! That so seldom happens. And it didn't seem overwritten, like someone got hold of a thesaurus and used it irresponsibly. (Lambent, soughing, anther.) An interesting consideration how languages and cultures might develop in the presence of a single sex.

Worst book of the month: Legends

Hit-or-miss anthology.

TBR List Update: March

                 

I'm working my way through #VirtualMountTBR2025. Here's my current To-Be-Read List, and here's the list of titles I have read this year.

In March 2025

Books read: 5

Books I decided NOT to finish: 2

The Very Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan: It's not the right style of horror for me. Things were dark but maybe too eldritch.

Tin Star: Too much telling, not enough explaining. I could not invest emotionally.

Life Undercover

Books left on the TBR List: 36 (plus 11 checked out/in progress) 

Best book of the month: All the Sweeter

Technically I haven't finished it yet, but this was a nuanced exploration of foster parenting (not necessarily pitched as a 101 introduction) and it resonated with me.

Worst book of the month: A Splendid Ruin

Which is not to say it was a terrible story. Lots of architectural and social history of familiar places, but not satisfying in its tale of justified revenge.

My persistence in "only books I like" has led to a lot of impulse borrowings on Hoopla, instead of working on the TBR list. I also added a few titles to that list for later. Oh well.