May 2019 Reading Wrap Up

May was a pretty hectic month and I managed to read just 6 small books, out of which one is a graphic novel. Hoping that June would be a better month in terms of reading. Most of the reading happened in the last week of the month.

The books I read are –

1. Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse – 4.5 stars

I read this book for Wyrd and Wonder. I loved this book and will definitely pick the sequel soon. I have a full review of this book here.

2. In an absent dream by Seanan McGuire – 2 stars

I read this book towards the end of the month as I wanted to read some fantasy book for Wyrd and Wonder. This was a quick read as it was a novella. This was my least favorite book in the Wayward Children series. The books are getting less and less interesting after the second book. I didn’t find this world with Goblin Market that fascinating. If felt too made up and unrealistic, even for a fantasy world. I didn’t understand why Lundy liked that world or why she preferred it over the normal world. I didn’t understand why Lundy will want to leave her loving family in an interesting world for a such boring world like Goblin’s Market (I didn’t like Moon or the Archivist). Also it was too preachy and boring. Not much going in terms of plot either.
Not sure I want to continue with this series. The only good thing is that these books are short and easy to read. If not, I probably would have DNFed this book as I didn’t like it. The writing was great which was the only good thing about this book.

3. Startide Rising by David Brin – 3 (or 3.5 ?) stars

I read this book in May as David Brin was coming to Baycon, which is a local science fiction convention. I did get to meet him there and got my book autographed. I have a full review of the book here and my experience about meeting the author is here in this post.

4. Diary of an awesome friendly kid by Jeff Kinney – 4 stars

For some reason, I had no idea this book even existed until recently when I saw it on Instagram. I immediately ordered a copy and read it on the day it arrived. I love Rowley from this series and was excited to see that there was a book entirely dedicated to him. But it wasn’t about Rowley. 😦 I was a little disappointed as the book focused on Greg a lot. I know Rowley and Greg hang out together a lot but I wish the book had focused on Rowley, his family and his other friends. The title is misleading. It should have been titled Diary of Greg from Rowley’s POV. I need a book ABOUT Rowley. 😦 But Rowley kinda proves how bad Greg is as a friend through his stories.
It’s funny just like the wimpy kid books but deducting 1 star because of not meeting my expectations.

5. Time Management from the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern – 5 stars

I am a big fan of this woman. I read her other book “Organizing from inside out” and felt it was the best book on decluttering I had read and after reading this book, I feel this is the best book on time management there is. The author is very succinct and to the point, she gives exact steps to follow and brief which hardly happens in self help books.
I even got DVDs of her talking on both space and time topics and loved the way she conveyed her ideas.
Loved this book. Got so many ideas for my planner.

6. The seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid – 3.5 stars

The narrators of the audiobook did a great job. It was entertaining to begin with. Evelyn uses her beauty to her advantage and ends up becoming a top actress in Hollywood. I liked the first half which talks about Evelyn’s early career in Hollywood and how she ends up becoming a famous movie star. The second half was pretty boring. It was fake marriages and divorces one after another and it sort of became repetitive. But it had multiple great lgbtq (gay, lesbian and bisexual) characters.
The love interest of Evelyn Hugo wasn’t particularly a nice person. I felt that person was just using Evelyn and it did not seem like true love to be honest. I didn’t like Evelyn as a person too. She was too selfish and narcissistic for my liking. She never really cared for her family or daughter, even though she keeps saying she loved her daughter. She was only interested in her sex life as every relationship that she ever had was mostly sexual I felt. I did not see selfless “love” where you care for another person’s happiness. Evelyn was mostly concerned about her happiness.
I didn’t get why Evelyn was that famous either. She just won one Oscars and had couple of famous movies. Not like she had a string of hits, one after another. Celia seemed to be winning more Oscars than her.
The big reveal at the end didn’t feel that impactful either. I am usually not a fan of endings where all is good and everyone is forgiven, blah blah.
It’s an okay one time read but I didn’t love it. It felt too dramatic and unrealistic.

So what did you read in May?