May Reading Stats+

I'm a bit behind on writing this. This wasn't a great reading month for me. I don't know if it was for too much reason. Lack of motivation I suppose. Though that's not why I'm behind on writing this. Well, not the only reason anyway. We were also on vacation which didn't lead to a lot of time to get things written. Or read anything actually. Such are vacations when kids are involved since before-time vacations involved much reading. I brought a book that I didn't even take out of my bag. Not even on a cross-country flight because it turns out being interrupted every 2-3 minutes by a small child makes it frustrating to try to read anything. But hey, we did get to spend a lot of time seeing friends and going to the beach and a dog birthday party and we even took a trip to Disneyland! And we took the little monster on Haunted Mansion and possibly gave him some excellent fodder for therapy in a few years*. Ah, memories.

Anyway, stats!

Total books read

3

Mexican Gothic by Silveo Moreno-Garcia

The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson

The Palace of the Drowned by Christine Mangan

Mexican Gothic by Silveo Moreno-Garcia

This was a surprise read for the month. Surprise in the sense that I have had it on hold at the library and the wait time on it was something like "Hahaha yeah sure, you'll get to read this sometime this year" when it suddenly became available. Creepy story (gothic perhaps) about a mysterious family in a secluded village in Mexico and a frantic letter from Noemi's cousin begging for help. There are lots of secrets, lots of atmosphere and right when you think you have things figured out, you don't. It gets scarier than I thought it would and overall the pros outweighed any complaints.

Rating: 4 stars

The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson

A re-read for me, though first time listening. Bryson (or rather his editor) decides that he needs a new book and it being the anniversary of his book Notes from a Small Island that this is an excellent opportunity to revisit this adopted island nation, especially as he is officially taking a citizenship test. So Bryson creates the Bryson line, the 2 furthest points on Great Britain and visits a bunch of towns and is in general funny and curmudgeonly. Possibly more curmudgeonly than in other books or at least it stood out more. I liked it (it was a re-read after all) but not quite as much as I like his science and history stuff.

Rating: 4 stars

The Palace of the Drowned by Christine Mangan

A writer, Frankie, escapes her home in London following a negative review and a public breakdown to spend some time in Venice to get away and get inspired. While there and waiting for her friends to join her she meets a young woman Gilly who says they have an acquaintance in common, but is that really true? The story has interesting points and bit of a mystery but overall was slow with not-especially-likable-or-interesting characters. A lot happens (relatively speaking anyway) in the last quarter of the book which makes things feel a bit uneven. But hey, most of the setting is Venice and I'm a fan of that. Even if I wasn't a fan of the narrator's over-pronunciation of Italian words (perhaps I would have liked the book more not as an audiobook). 

Rating: 2.5 stars

Total pages read

1,021

Fiction

67%

Female authors

67%

BIPOC authors

33%

US authors

33%

Book format

audiobook - 100%

Where'd I get the book

library - 67%

indie - 33%

Bookclub/readalong

33%

Reread

33%

Decade published

2010s: 33%

2020s: 67%

Resolution books

67%

Mexican Gothic is by a Mexican-Canadian author (Mexican by birth, Canadian by inclination, or so says her bio)

The Palace of the Drowned is by an Irish author

Bryson can get honorable mention here as he has spent at this point more of his life in England than the US though I still primarily count him as a US author so 

*To defend myself here, he loves the Haunted Mansion. In theory anyway. He has watched the Behind The Attraction about the ride an estimated 1,000 times, included twice on the flight over. He has a story book about the Haunted Mansion that he reads on a regular basis. From the moment we parked, he was going on about how he wanted to see the Haunted Mansion. And he was wide eyed through the ride. Until we came out and he goes "Oh no, that was too scary" and then refused to go in any where that was dark or other rides (which could also include ghosts) and didn't like disembodied voices (i.e., the PA system making an announcement). We did eventually get him to go on Jungle Cruise which he was a big fan of and kept saying "Hey that wasn't scary!" And when we asked him his fav part he goes back and forth on telling us it was Haunted Mansion or not. Also he made me read him the Haunted Mansion book every night before bed. So maybe we haven't permanently scarred him.