What day is it?

Do you ever wake up and just go through the motions of your daily routine and then have a dawning realization that you aren’t really aware of what day it is? Yeah, that’s me Today. Hellooooo Lauren, wake up and smell the coffee girlfriend! I went my entire day without really comprehending that it’s Wednesday. *facepalm* I swear I get so busy sometimes that I just know what I need to do and when I need to do it, but I am not aware of the day of the week. It’s times like those that I find I really need to stop and take a break, which usually means reading therapy. Due to how busy I’ve been lately and the fact that it was Mother’s Day weekend last weekend, I have no fun food pictures to share with you and I’m sorry for that. I wish I had remembered to take a picture of the seafood boil my brother cooked for Mother’s Day, it was quite something! Corn cobs, potato, onion, sausage, shrimp and crab legs!! We dumped it all in a pile on the dining room table and went to town. Yummmm!!!

I have also been busy reading books, but no surprise there! I just recently posted a review of an ARC of Crown of Coral and Pearl by Mara Rutherford, which was a fantastic read that I gave a 5 star rating to, so please feel free to check that out! I’ve also finished 3 other books prior to the ARC. That brings me up to 6 books read for May so far, I’d like to read at least another 6 books before month’s end.

• Wayward (book 2 in the Wayward Pines series) by Blake Crouch – 5 stars
• Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enriquez – 4 stars
• Dreamers by Yuyi Morales – 5 stars

Ever since I read Dark Matter by Blake Crouch in 2018 I had decided that I would continue reading his other books, and so this year I’ve been reading the Wayward Pines series he wrote. Luckily they are all on Kindle Unlimited so I’ve been enjoying those with the audio book narrations. The Wayward Pines series is a Scifi series and I don’t want to say much more than that because it’s too easy to let slip a spoiler. The first book, Pines, really threw me for a loop and hooked me on the rest of the series. I just have to know what happens, so I’m in it til the end!

Things We Lost in the Fire and Dreamers were two books I read to complete topics for the 2019 BookRiot Read Harder Challenge. I needed to read a Children’s or Middle Grade book that has won a diversity award since 2009, so I chose Dreamers by Yuyi Morales. The illustrations were so vibrant and imaginative that I found myself looking at the pages for a longer amount of time than it took to read the picture book. It was such a cute story about a young mother and her son who come to the US for a better life and find a love to read at their public library. Such an adorable picture book and it portrayed a great story for little developing minds. The other book completed the topic for a translated book written by and/or translated by a woman, which my book was written and translated by a woman. It was a bunch of creepy stories about characters in Argentina, and the stories almost always portrayed socio-economical diversity and struggles among the characters. Some of these stories sent chills down my spine, so of course I absolutely loved them!

I know that Reading Challenges are kind of intimidating, especially the typical challenge like the self-imposed Goodreads yearly challenge of “I’m going to read this many books this year”. Many people either miserably fail or blast that challenge out of the water. I always set a Goodreads yearly goal, but I never pressure myself to stick to it. If I read less than what my goal is Great!, or if I read more.. Great! LOL. What I find beneficial are the Reading Challenges that encourage you to read outside your comfort zone and expand your horizons. How do you really know that you don’t like a certain genre, trope, or topic if you’ve never tried it? I always thought I hated Non-Fiction, until I tried one for a Reading Challenge and found that I actually like Non-Fiction, especially books about Serial Killers. Do any of you participate in Reading Challenges? BookRiot has the Read Harder challenge, PopSugar does a yearly challenge… which one do you do? Or do you just read and not keep track? I’d love to know, so please leave a comment! 🙂

Well I’m off to go start another book for my local Book Club who follows the BookRiot Read Harder Challenge, this month we are discussing the Children’s book with a diversity award and a Non-Violent True Crime. I’m starting The Map Thief by Michael Blanding, the gripping story of an esteemed rare-map dealer who made millions stealing priceless maps. Drop a comment with what you’re currently reading, I’d love to know!!

Happy Reading!